Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

wmpoweruser.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 187 posts

Re: Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

#31

Post by kevingadd »

frozenport wrote: post #23
yulaow wrote: post #2

This is imho the best news ever from microsoft. Now I can target serverside, frontend, windows8 devices and windowsphone all with one language (javascript for me). Not bad at all update: I have to add other news just announced. With winJS now we can target also xboxone, ios and android device And also the full framework is opensource under apache license update2: winJS on github https://github.com/winjs/winjs

Couldn't you do this with javscript before and also get MacOS, Linux, and Android? Anything with a web-browser?

win8's js framework isn't just a browser with your code in it. They expose pretty much all of their API surface to JS with JS-friendly APIs and things like promises for async calls, so you're not stuck using dumbed-down apis or calling out to native code shims for things HTML5 can't do yet.

Re: Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

#32

Post by rkuykendall-com »

frozenport wrote: post #24

I'm shocked this didn't happen sooner. If you ever wanted to point to a problem with MS vision you can ask yourself why this didn't happen in 2005.

I think your underestimating the INSANE amount of vision and foresight that would be required to do this in 2005.

1. The xbox 360 was released in 2005. This was essentially the first Microsoft console to run 'apps,' and those had to be architected specifically for the console.

2. The iPhone was years away in 2005. Phones ran shitty little apps that had to be architected specifically for the phone.

3. The iPad was years away. Microsoft tablets just ran XP. The idea of the iPad as a "bigger iPhone" was mocked to no end when it was announced. People thought they wanted OS X on a touchscreen. Microsoft would have thought the same thing.

4. gMail has just been released. The idea of a true "web app" required remarkable vision and foresight by itself. Additionally, web apps had to be architected specifically for the browser (seeing a pattern?).

Even if Microsoft had seen 5 years into the future and predicted all these changes, the platform they would have created in 2005 wouldn't have had anything to run on.

Re: Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

#33

Post by gagaga »

0x006A wrote: post #30

They must live in quite a bubble if "universal" only includes Microsoft platforms.

I guess Google and Apple also live in a bubble? Not really sure what your point is. Is your expectation that Microsoft Universal apps also run on Android and Google? On Web browsers? Would you like them to use a different term?

Re: Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

#34

Post by svas »

Interesting move in the right direction. I wonder if they'll take it further and let you write iOS and Android apps using Xamarin / Mono?

This would actually provide an easy path for developers to get into the Windows ecosystem while ignoring the whole market share issue. Combine first class integration with an awesome IDE (Visual Studio), and frankly way better tooling than Eclipse this would be a pretty compelling reason for me to use Xamarin, and by extension have a Windows run target for my app.

Re: Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

#36

Post by Touche »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #29
candl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, definitely just a WebView. Still having a set of quality cross-platform MVVM-aware components for HTML5 is nice.

Oh, I misunderstood what the implications were for "cross platform" then in this context. I would never think that javascript wasn't cross platform, I'll have to look into the MVVM components but JS already has that with libraries like Knockout so obviously I need to go back and watch the keynote again. Thanks for the clarification.

The APIs are what is now cross-platform. Previously WinJS had hooks for opening files (as one example) that obviously only worked in Windows.

Re: Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

#37

Post by cbhl »

emeraldd wrote: post #21

I'm still trying to figure out how/why this makes sense as a goal. Building an application that runs across multiple platforms in congruent spaces makes sense: iOS and Android and Windows Phone. When you move to running the same application across Laptop vs. Phone style platforms, even on modern hardware, you're looking at capabilities and resources that are radically different. I can see wanting to share certain com…

Microsoft has been trying to run Windows on tablets since 2001, if not earlier. To me, this really is to bridge the phone/tablet barrier (previously you had two or even three separate apps, since tablets ran either Windows RT (ARM) or Windows 8 (x86)).

Re: Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

#38

Post by Touche »

frozenport wrote: post #23
yulaow wrote: post #2

This is imho the best news ever from microsoft. Now I can target serverside, frontend, windows8 devices and windowsphone all with one language (javascript for me). Not bad at all update: I have to add other news just announced. With winJS now we can target also xboxone, ios and android device And also the full framework is opensource under apache license update2: winJS on github https://github.com/winjs/winjs

Couldn't you do this with javscript before and also get MacOS, Linux, and Android? Anything with a web-browser?

No, web browsers don't have APIs for accessing everything the native platforms are capable of doing.

Re: Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

#39

Post by 0x006A »

gagaga wrote: post #33
0x006A wrote: post #30

They must live in quite a bubble if "universal" only includes Microsoft platforms.

I guess Google and Apple also live in a bubble? Not really sure what your point is. Is your expectation that Microsoft Universal apps also run on Android and Google? On Web browsers? Would you like them to use a different term?

Its fine if they only target Microsoft Products as a Platform, calling it Universal was confusing to me. Of cause Google and Apple also have there bubbles too, they seam to be more aware of the universe they live in to not brand themselves as the universe.

Re: Microsoft introduces Universal Windows apps

#40

Post by cbhl »

frozenport wrote: post #24

I'm shocked this didn't happen sooner. If you ever wanted to point to a problem with MS vision you can ask yourself why this didn't happen in 2005.

Microsoft had tablet PCs running Windows in 2001. The price point never worked out. I'd say they had the vision, but the focus on backwards compatibility prevented them from bringing in a new paradigm.
Post reply on HN