Earlier quoted context omitted.
Am I shadowbanned? I can't see my comment from another account.
I can see both your comments.
Thanks, I found out that there is a page fold on HN with 'more' at the bottom that I was previously unaware of.
Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
421–430 of 724 posts
Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
Might be, but given how they managed the whole story, they will get UWP apps that work by accident on phones. Just like Google and Apple get phone apps that work by accident on tablets, but feel out of place otherwise.
what do you mean "by accident?" UWP works across Windows 10 platforms by design.
Just because UWP targets all Windows 10 platforms, it doesn't mean a developer will take all of them into account.
Currently most UWP developers only care about desktop as target platform, so if it happens to work and be a good UI/UX in a e.g. 7" display it will be by accident.
One needs to take responsive design and API contracts into account, to make a good UI/UX across all supported platforms.
Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing about the MS platforms that has always been an issue is that they change the developer APIs around all the time. Every year they come out with the latest greatest way to access a database or whatever and it really isn't that much better than what they had last year, but it still requires a rewrite.
In Microsoft's defense, they also tend to support their stuff for a long time. I work with MFC every day. It's 20+ years old and still being developed.
They support the stuff they can't kill for a long time.
You can still run VB6 apps but try running a .net framework 1.0 app!
Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
#424Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
#425If I was Microsoft I'd work on something like a browser based mobile OS like Firefox OS. Firefox OS failed but that was before ES6 and asmjs.
Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
#426Does this mean that Groove Music will go the way of Zune and PlaysForSure?
Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Microsoft's defense, they also tend to support their stuff for a long time. I work with MFC every day. It's 20+ years old and still being developed.
OMG. MFC ? You mean Microsoft Foundation Classes ? mmh. that stuff is still supported ? eventhough there was/is all the .NET crazyness. That's actually pretty good of MS. I guess the main question is: how do you in advance if you got a MFC-like library from MS with 20+ year support vs a library like Sliverlight where they drop support and let you alone with a migration to a different platform ?
Maybe there's a cautionary tale about being an early adopter here. I don't know if I would start a new project with MFC, but it was a fantastic decision in 1996.
In a way, I think it's harder to pick technologies today for large projects. It seems like if something isn't new and growing steadily, it's stale and fading fast. What are the tools and frameworks with a long, healthy middle age ahead of them? I'm learning Go right now because there are a couple of web services I need, but I'm not that confident that I'll be able to run the same code for the next 20 years.
Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Microsoft's defense, they also tend to support their stuff for a long time. I work with MFC every day. It's 20+ years old and still being developed.
OMG. MFC ? You mean Microsoft Foundation Classes ? mmh. that stuff is still supported ? eventhough there was/is all the .NET crazyness. That's actually pretty good of MS. I guess the main question is: how do you in advance if you got a MFC-like library from MS with 20+ year support vs a library like Sliverlight where they drop support and let you alone with a migration to a different platform ?
> how do you [know] in advance if you got a MFC-like library from MS with 20+ year support vs a library like Sliverlight where they drop support and let you alone with a migration to a different platform ?
If it is old, it will be supported for a long time. If it is new, the odds are mostly on it not surviving. Ever wondered why so many people insist on using outdated stuff?
You get a better deal from open source. But even there you may not like the possible consequences of using non-mainstream things.
Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
#429I was working in Microsoft about 5 years ago and Satya's not lying when they say they tried everything to incentivise app developers. It was a big focus of the company at the time. For keystone apps they tried to partner with developers doing most of the work for them. For more niche apps they ran promotions for students and independent developers giving away free phones etc. But nothing was enough to get over the pr…
Wrong.
Take a look at another platform that Microsoft pushed into: game consoles. How did they break into game consoles? They bought an entire game studio, Bungie, and produced one of the most best selling games of all time (Halo) as an exclusive title. Nothing Microsoft did with Windows phone was on remotely the same scale. The fact that a movie of that scale would have been vastly more costly than the acquisition of Bungie and development of Halo is merely an indication of the fact that MS waited too long, not that nothing could be done.
Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
The given problem is not in the UX standpoint, it's a developers' problem. As a developer of WinAPI app, I can just click on .EXE file. I can use CreateProcess to run it. I can use command shell to run it, right? And so on. I'm free. The UWP is a different story: as a developer, I can do exactly nothing. I cannot run .EXE. I cannot run .APPX. I cannot run from command shell. I cannot distribute .EXE. I cannot distrib…
> I cannot distribute .APPX You can distribute .APPX. You can't distribute an unsigned .APPX and guarantee users can use it, but you haven't been able to do that with .EXE in years either. > I cannot run .APPX. Double clicking an .APPX installs it. > I cannot run .EXE. You can include Win32 .EXEs in .APPX packages now. There's a bunch of tools to support just that scenario called the "Desktop Bridge". > I cannot run…
Launch from Layout is an installation method that allows you to take loose files (an unpacked appx zip) and tell the OS 'treat this as an installed app'. You can do this with a couple WinRT APIs, Device Portal, or WinAppDeployCmd which comes with the SDK.
I own dev mode for Windows 10, and can confirm that these issues have been always solved and recently received more improvements, although the documentation may be lacking. Windows has always supported third party stores and the ability to pass around an appx.