
Windows Phone Developers: Just Let It Go - ductionist
https://medium.com/user-camp/windows-phone-developers-just-let-it-go-f5a0f37a9e44
======
titanix2
I'm an ex hobbyist Windows Phone developer and I have no plan to port any of
my applications to UWP.

First because I don't like Windows 10 itself: its UI, the Store, the builtin
ads, the forced updates, the invasive telemetry. Should the LTSB edition be
available to anyone I would use it, but the Pro edition is a no go.

Secondly because I don't like the closeness of UWP. Silverlight was a good
platform in my opinion because its runs apps out-of-browser on various
editions of Windows _and_ Mac OS. UWP apps on the other side doesn't even run
on the most deployed edition of Windows!

Finally because I didn't have enough trust in Microsoft on the consumer side.
Since the launch of WP7 Microsoft consistently breaks its promises and the
expectations of its users and developers base. It doesn't motivate me to
invest time to learn APIs and a framework that will be ditched for another one
in a few years for no obvious reason.

However I still like a lot C# and F#. I'm building & experimenting with
Xamarin for front-end applications. MonoGame is portable solution for games
but there is no portable UI framework for application. And the investment in
UWP is in the total opposite direction of providing or supporting from
Microsoft.

~~~
WorldMaker
«Secondly because I don't like the closeness of UWP. Silverlight was a good
platform in my opinion because its runs apps out-of-browser on various
editions of Windows and Mac OS. UWP apps on the other side doesn't even run on
the most deployed edition of Windows!»

If it helps, Microsoft's Xamarin team announced macOS, Linux, and WPF (Windows
7+) support for Xamarin.Forms (expanding it to full desktop support beyond
just Android and iOS mobile support). Admittedly, Xamarin.Forms is a subset of
the full UWP, but it hopefully should with XAML Standard 1.0 alignment
converge to be more of a proper subset of UWP than Silverlight ever was for
WPF.

These enhancements to Xamarin.Forms and the development of the XAML Standard
1.0 are all in open source development on GitHub.

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endorphone
"the Store is booming on the desktop...The half-billion desktop Windows 10
users are eventually going to turn in to a half-billion desktop Store users,
and it’s going to happen faster than anyone thinks"

This seems remarkably optimistic and entirely at odds with Microsoft's history
with this sort of initiative.

~~~
ductionist
They don't have a great track record, but so far it seems to be working out
this time - our indie apps get about one million downloads per month from the
Store, and 95% of those are on desktop. If Microsoft can get more household
name apps (like iTunes) into their store then I think it'll happen. Windows 10
S will help too.

~~~
endorphone
Could I ask what apps they are? A million a month is a remarkable number for a
store where a heavily featured app (the Fitbit app) has five reviews
worldwide, and where I can't find a single app with more than triple digit
reviews.

All indications right now is that the Store remains a disaster. This could be
an uninformed assessment (for instance maybe reviews are not made intuitive,
etc), but if there is alternative information I'd love to hear it.

The Windows desktop right now seems....stratified and solidified. People know
what they run on their desktop and on the new install they install Chrome,
Office, 7zip, etc, and that's it. There seems to be very little interest in
discovery of new options.

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pavlov
_You’re right next door to a platform that Microsoft is pushing hard, that
users actually like, and is a huge blue ocean of opportunity for indie
developers — for now._

Isn't that exactly the same pitch as the one Microsoft gave these developers
back in 2011-12? I don't blame them if they decide not to buy it this time
around.

~~~
pawadu
I think the opportunity is definitely there.

The problem is the Microsoft has been changing their mind so many times about
technical things (remember silverlight? or XNA? How about hardware support for
WP7.8? WP8.1? W10 before creators update?) that a lot of developers just left
the platform in anger and Microsoft now has to attract new developers.

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a2tech
The attitude in this blog post is exactly the kind of attitude that drives
users and developers away. Ramming the Store down desktop users throats isn't
exactly customer focused.

~~~
UK-AL
Most customers the store is targeted probably appreciate the store.

You are pro user, so you value freedom. Normal users want safety and
convience.

~~~
phr4ts
As a Windows and Windows Phone user, this is my take:

Pro users and normal users both want convenience. For pro users, key shortcuts
and cli serves this purpose.

Take the chrome store for example. It's light-ish and loads pretty fast. It's
very easy to download, store and distribute chrome extensions.

The same cannot be said for the Windows Store. It inherits and extends every
problem windows update. (Spits random errors that make no sense to normal
users: error 0x239akd. The date on the machine, country setting, language
setting can trigger errors.)

The store is SLOW unless you're using broadband. Microsoft has made it
virtually impossible to download, store and distribute store apps.

With desktop apps, I can download the exe file on my work computer and install
on my home computer - not possible with store apps.

Originally, the windows store a font 9px download link hidden at the bottom. I
once downloaded a 2GB game from the store only to get home and it refused to
install.

Summary: Microsoft has built several walls around their marketplace but are
confused as to why people aren't rushing in.

~~~
WorldMaker
Appx sideloading has gotten much, much better since the Windows 10 Anniversary
update. Copy a signed appx file to a machine, double click, and you get a
nice, simple installer dialog. As easy, if not easier (no UAC prompt, for
instance), than double clicking an EXE or MSI file.

Yes, it might be nice if the Windows Store made it easier to get Appx files
for apps for scenarios like "download at work and install at home".

(Though I think Microsoft's current focus is more on the side of "tell my
machine at home to go ahead and download the app while I'm at work" scenarios,
between Xbox already prioritizing that and some of the things they are working
on with "Project Rome"/the Microsoft Graph.)

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roryisok
I'm literally working on a Windows Phone 8 app this instant. I took five mins
out to check HN.

I agree with the sentiment though - UWP is the way to go

~~~
ductionist
You're an endangered species ;) Why are you still working on a Winphone 8 app
if I may ask?

~~~
roryisok
Purely for my own use. My primary phone is a wp8.1 handset. I want to replace
OneNote with an app that uses text files on dropbox as a datastore. That way I
can write on the phone and pick it up later on the desktop like I can with one
note, but also not worry about vendor lock in

OneNote had a week long outage on wp8/.1 earlier this year. MS were slow to
fix because wp8 is no longer supported. In fact I believe it only got fixed
because it also affected xbox logins somehow. I'm moving away from OneNote
because of that, but I like my old Lumia

~~~
lostmsu
I've upgraded my unsupported Ativ S to Windows 10 Mobile.

~~~
roryisok
how did that go?

~~~
lostmsu
Took long time to do it right. Camera doesn't focus and minimal brightness
turns screen off (which is nearly impossible to restore). Those are the only
problems thought.

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stolk
So about UWP: Browsing the Microsoft website, I see that you can develop in
C++. But can you do OpenGL apps with UWP? Or is Direct3D the only way to do 3D
for the UWP platform? If it is, it kinda makes porting from Android/iOS/Linux
to UWP too hard to be practical.

~~~
WorldMaker
Looks like there is a project template for it:
[http://developernote.com/2015/11/combining-opengl-and-
xaml-t...](http://developernote.com/2015/11/combining-opengl-and-xaml-
together-in-a-windows-store-app-uwp/)

