Foley: Is UWP dead?

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Mary Jo interviewed Kevin Gallo, Corporate VP of the Windows Developer Platform, and reported on the conversation in ZDNet: Microsoft’s new goal is to
[See the full post at: Foley: Is UWP dead?]

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Elly

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I’d like to see the entire UWP and that TIFKAM/Tiles nonsense canned and a return to something more similar to windows 7’s UI. But Maybe add to that a retrn to the Windows 7 style updating where the end user has more control over the update process and can opt for only security related updates and not any feature creep related eternal BETA edition windows 10 type of constantly moving the goal post sort of OS evironment that’s always broken to the point of tears and pounding fists.

But then anyways I’d gladly pay $100 per year for 3 more years of Windows 7 security updates in hopes that Microsoft can finally get its windows 10 Ducks in proper order and that’s maybe wishfull thinking. Jan 2020 in going to be something to remember as so many will still be remaining on windows 7 even after there are no security updates available for consumers . But for the Lucky Enterprise/Volume licensees the Option of continued windows 7 security updates for a price until 2023 is actually a great deal compared to what one will have to endure with windows 10 and that special kind of madness.

UWP(RT/TIFKAM renamed) is too much like a Phone ecosystem model of mostly consumption related Apps compared to a full desktop OS Ecosystem that’s productivity related applications where actual work gets done.

We are all made to suffer for Redmond’s failed Smartphone App Store ecosystem ambitions that’s resulted in a perfectly fine desktop UI and productive OS application ecosystem platform burned to the ground in the name of the SmartPhone App cosumption business model that repeatingly has gone up in flames with each new attempt at creating an App market on Desktops(UWP) that no one really wants.

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JSTechGeek, Elly, lurks about, woody

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Seems the Writings already on the wall for UWP or Metro Apps on Windows 8.1, just for the News App, Weather, Sports, Money and the other frivolities no EOL Nag Message yet.

This popped in yesterday when I fired it up.
PS Hold that thought Money, Sport and Weather just all displayed the same message on fire up this morning.

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Microfix

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… any update?

I just saw this from Dan Thorp-Lancaster at Windows Central:

Given that Microsoft’s focus is now on the Microsoft News and Weather apps for Windows 10, it’s not entirely surprising to see that the Windows 8.1 apps will be discontinued soon.

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rc primak

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Can you get into the Store? I’m seeing at least one report that says it’s broken in 8.1.

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The Store still works on my Win8.1 main driver.

Weather and News come up without any notices. = I never use these, don’t even look at them. I’m using Classic Shell. But I got a 133MB download from the News app (383 files) just by opening it.

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woody

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I thought Win8.1 was supposed t be supported till 2023.

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It is. Sorta. These UWP apps appear to be at end of life. I think. Trying to find some official announcement.

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I’ve never thought much of Windows 8.x or 10 apps, whether they’re called Metro, Modern, or UWP.  The reasoning behind introducing these things seems rather obvious… MS wanted to become a real third option in the phone market, but no one wanted to get on board with Windows phones until they had a real app store.  Devs didn’t want to waste their time developing for the MS store until there were enough Windows phones to justify the effort.  It’s the classic chicken-or-egg thing.

What MS did with 8 was to try to use the desktop to sell Windows phones.  The whole phone-like interface was like one big ad that constantly reminded people that Windows does phones.  Even the way they began to call Win32 programs “desktop apps” seemed designed to reinforce this notion, since everyone (correctly) associates the term “apps” with phones.

Making the phone interface and Windows Store (later called Microsoft Store) on 8.x was clearly supposed to convince app devs that they should go ahead and write some Windows Metro apps right now, even before Windows phones have any significant market share.  Why wait?  There’s a market for Windows phone apps right now, in Windows 8.1 for desktop PCs! These people would theoretically get a bunch of Metro apps, and then when it was time for their next phone, they might just get a Windows phone so they could keep using their apps and have the familiar tiled interface that already felt like home.

It didn’t work, of course.  Windows 8 was so weird on the desktop that few wanted it, and it still didn’t make any sense for app devs to write for the Windows Store that no one seemed to want.  It was a hail Mary from the start, trying to make up for years of tepid efforts in the phone market, and it failed.  Still, this seems to be one thing that was not negotiable with MS in developing Windows 10… the tiles, the Microsoft Store, the ability to run cross-platform phone/PC apps… that was not up for discussion.  These were some of the most unpopular things with 8.x, but if there was any chance at all that it could help Microsoft’s phone ambitions, it evidently had to be done.

MS had simply released 8 in the manner they’d released all the other Windows versions, leaving customers the option of skipping it, which they did, in droves.  If Microsoft’s strategy of making a phone app market out of desktop PC users was to work, the version of Windows that could run the phone apps had to have significant and growing market share.  Enter Windows 10, which was gonna have significant market share by any means necessary.

I hated (and still do hate) the half and half 10 interface, and at first I hoped that the inevitable failure of the gambit to use Windows users as stepping stones toward their phone ambitions would hurry up and happen so MS could drop the phone pretense and get back to what they know, which is making desktop OSes.  When they finally threw in the towel on Windows Phone, though, they didn’t back off a bit on the PC-as-phone model, so that clearly didn’t work out the way I had hoped.

One of the complaints frequently made about MS is that they keep developing these new things like Metro and UWP, encouraging devs to adapt to the new system, only to kill the new thing off and pull the rug out from under those devs who did get on board with the new thing (often right after assuring them that rumors they’d heard about the imminent demise of the new thing were false).  This was undoubtedly one of the factors that led many app devs to avoid the Microsoft Store, and if UWP is being scuttled, it looks as if they were right to do so, and makes it less likely that anyone will trust the next new thing that MS comes up with.

 

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AlexEiffel, Sessh

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woody

Paul Thurrott has also his recent take on UWP here:
https://www.thurrott.com/dev/206351/microsoft-confirms-uwp-is-not-the-future-of-windows-apps

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Lori

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With Chromebooks now getting Android Apps and Linux apps, I see little incentive for developers to continue to create UWP apps which are Windows-centric. Not enough mobile devices will ever run any version of Windows to justify an investment in an app platform which is OS-specific.

This is why developers seem to be more interested in developing PWA’s (Progressive Web Apps). These run cross-platform and can survive the inevitable migration from the local desktop to the Cloud desktop.

-- rc primak

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