Newsletter Archives

• Apps vs. applications

  Posted on October 16, 2023 at 02:42 CDT by Ed Tittel • Comment in the Forums

  WINDOWS

  

  By Ed Tittel

  In Windows 10 and 11, there are two parallel architectures for building executables.

  Let’s call the older and more familiar architecture “applications.” It uses traditional, more conventional development tools and frameworks and results in programs that typically run as .exe files.

  The newer alternative was introduced with the debut of Windows 8 in 2012 as “Metro-style apps,” using tiles in the Windows Start menu with a variety of executable formats based on what is called .appx technology.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.42.0, 2023-10-16).

  Windows Development, Newsletters, UWP, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Store

• UWP is dead… sorta

  Posted on May 15, 2020 at 07:47 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  You remember the Universal Windows Platform, UWP, right?

  It started out as the future of Windows programming. In Windows 8 days, UWP apps were known as Metro-style apps. You got them from the Windows Store, which was due to become the source of all Windows stuff – with Metro guiding the way.

  As I said a year ago:

  You can define “UWP” in a million different ways – the API, the interface, the “Store app” location. There are parts of UWP that’ll be absorbed into other Microsoft products. That absorption is under way now. You can think of the absorption as a manifestation of UWP’s longevity. But the push on devs to build UWP apps or be left in the dust? The “Win10 über alles” mindset? That’s headed out the door.

  UWP is on its way out and there’s nothing the fanbois can do to stop the shift. We saw the same thing happen with ActiveX and Silverlight – Microsoft getting devs all fired up about using a new technology, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.

  You can draw your own conclusions, but everything I’ve seen points to an extended, painful demise of UWP as we know it. And I, for one, won’t miss it.

  I took a lot of flak from the faithful for that at the time, but guess what? It’s happening right now.

  Last week, Mary Jo Foley reported on an interview with MS VP for the developer platform Kevin Gallo, saying:

  When Microsoft launched UWP originally with Windows 8 (and continuing with Windows 10), officials promised that the platform would provide apps with better performance and security because they’d be distributable and updatable from the Microsoft Store. Developers would be able to use a common set of programming interfaces across Windows 10, Windows Phone, HoloLens and more, officials said, when selling the UWP vision. The downside: UWP apps would work on Windows 10-based devices only. Developers would have to do work to get their apps to be UWP/Store-ready. And Win32 apps wouldn’t get UWP features like touch and inking.

  Arguably, Gallo told me, “we shouldn’t have gone that way,” meaning creating this schism. But Microsoft execs — including Gallo — continue to maintain that UWP is not dead.

  I love that “arguably” part.

  Paul Thurrott has been sorting through the session list for the Build 2020 conference — the place MS dazzles the devoted developers, developers, developers — and found:

  “Learn how the Windows app platform is evolving and unifying Win32 and UWP so your present and future apps can easily target 1 billion+ Windows devices,” the description of a session titled Unifying and evolving the Windows app platform reads.

  He found a few other Build 2020 sessions that discuss UWP — and they all have the same tone. “Project Reunion” is the way of the future, and UWP gets kicked to the curb.

  Again, I won’t miss it one bit.

  Windows News UWP

• The furor over UWP’s death knell

  Posted on May 10, 2019 at 07:53 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  For once, I’m with Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley on this: UWP is on its way out and there’s nothing the fanbois can do to stop the shift. We saw the same thing happen with ActiveX and Silverlight – Microsoft getting devs all fired up about using a new technology, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.

  You can define “UWP” in a million different ways – the API, the interface, the “Store app” location. There are parts of UWP that’ll be absorbed into other Microsoft products. That absorption is under way now. You can think of the absorption as a manifestation of UWP’s longevity. But the push on devs to build UWP apps or be left in the dust? The “Win10 über alles” mindset? That’s headed out the door.

  If that makes me a hater, so be it.

  How is it possible to write articles saying "UWP is dead" while Microsoft showed all the contrary the last 3 days?? Do you really need to lie to get more clicks?

  — Rudy Huyn (@RudyHuyn) May 10, 2019

  If you have a strong stomach, take a look at the Reddit Windows 10 forum.

  Zac Bowden has a contrary opinion on Windows Central, but I don’t buy it.

  You can draw your own conclusions, but everything I’ve seen points to an extended, painful demise of UWP as we know it. And I, for one, won’t miss it.

  Long live Google’s (and, now, Microsoft’s) Progressive Web Apps. Part of this is semantics — the difference between UWP and PWA is declining rapidly. But the part about a truly “universal” experience, beyond the confines of Win10, is the way of the future.

  Windows News PWA, UWP

• Foley: Is UWP dead?

  Posted on May 8, 2019 at 10:50 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  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 try to make all features available to all of the Windows frameworks. Saying that Microsoft is dropping or deprecating any of the Windows frameworks seems to have been declared from on-high as a big no-no. Instead, Win32, UWP, Windows Presentation Foundation are all “elevated to full status,” as Gallo told me.

  (For those not up on the acronyms, UWP apps are the programs that only run on Windows 10. They were once called WinRT apps, then Metro apps, although there are differences among the definitions. And UWP apps were once synonymous with Microsoft Store apps. I’ve been predicting UWP’s demise for more than a year.)

  Gallo’s pronouncements sound, to me, like the same sort of drivel we heard when ActiveX was being tossed under the bus. Silverlight was the same way. And a gazillion other developer technologies that Microsoft tried and discarded.

  Mary Jo concludes:

  My main take-away from chatting with Gallo: The days of trying to push Windows developers to build and/or repackage their apps to be UWP/Store apps seemingly are over. It’s now Windows apps or bust.

  Good article.

  Windows News dodos, UWP

• Universal Windows Programs (“Metro apps”) aren’t dead yet, but there’s a better alternative on the horizon

  Posted on February 6, 2018 at 11:56 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Microsoft just announced that it’s going to start building Progressive Web App support into Edge and Win10.

  Progressive Web Apps aren’t so much Google’s much-better alternative to Win10-only Universal Windows Programs (formerly known as “Metro apps” or “Universal apps” or “Windows Store Apps” or any of a half-dozen other monikers) as they are a genuine attempt to make browser-based applications look and feel more like regular ol’ apps.

  Chances are very good you’ve never seen a PWA in action. But they’re definitely coming. At some point.

  The theoretical benefits of PWAs over UWPs are enormous. Just for starters, UWPs can only run in the stripped-down Win10 environment. PWAs, on the other hand, should be able to run on just about anything that supports a browser — particularly Chrome, or ChromeOS. Yeah, that includes Chromebooks, at least at some point.

  The browser requirement has vanished in the past couple of years, banking on a concept called service worker. Horrible name, but web folks are good at horrible names. Paul Thurrott described service workers months ago:

  Google’s initial take on PWAs wasn’t that compelling: The full resources of Chrome needed to load each time a PWA ran, and there was no minimal user interface or runtime. But when Google introduced the notion of service worker, the technological core of what we now know as PWAs, it was a big differentiator. With service workers, PWAs could work like native apps, offering features like offline support, background processing, and more.

  It now looks to me as if there’s going to be a headlong dash into developing PWAs — and that UWP’s days are numbered. Time will tell.

  UPDATE: Mary Jo Foley has a calendar for future developments in Microsoft’s side of the PWA wars, in her ZDNet blog.

  Uncategorized Chrome, ChromeOS, Progressive Web App, service worker, UWP

• Windows Mobile obituary

  Posted on April 4, 2017 at 16:49 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Excellent article from Jez Corden at Windows Central:

  Windows 10 Mobile should’ve been Microsoft’s bridge to the future — not an afterthought… Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP) is pointless without a mobile component… For the Windows Store to be anything more than an extra hoop to access services available on the desktop web, UWP needs a mobile endpoint. Otherwise, UWP might as well be thrown onto the scrapheap along with Windows 10 Mobile.

  Microsoft’s vague non-committal comments, the odd leaks we get, and Windows 10 Mobile Fast ring updates simply aren’t enough to convince developers, consumers, or the wider tech media, that those scalable UWP apps have more value than Win32 or web solutions. And without confidence in UWP, the entire proposition falls apart. Windows as a Service will flop along with it.

  Well worth reading.

  Windows News UWP, Windows Mobile