Microsoft has an app called, "Windows App". Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising from a company that named their OS after a single featur, but this name is so much worse. What does it do? The name doesn't say at all.
Did it really occur to nobody at Microsoft that "now open the Windows App app" is going to confuse a lot of people?
Even after reading the whole article, all I can infer is that this is a "seamless" replacement for Microsoft's "Remote Desktop". I'm assuming it's 100% Microsoft cloud based, although I'd be curious if it can be used without the Internet.
On non-Windows platforms its a partial UI rework on the existing Remote Desktop Client, but I think on Windows its separate to the existing Remote Desktop Client/App(s) and its specifically for accessing cloud-hosted Windows PCs (Windows365, DevBox, Azure VDI etc)
More specifically, I get the impression it’s part of a strategy to recenter the Windows desktop experience from “the PC on your desk” to “an aggregated view of your workplace-focused cloud services”.
Microsoft seems to be terrible at naming things, but their strategy is to confuse people when their products get labeled as garbage and have a stigma attached so they can just change the name again.
terrible is the understatement of the century. naming, renaming. different products with the same name. the same products with different names in different contexts. ugh.
Don’t worry. They will soon rename and release different variations: ‘Windows App Home’, Windows App Plus’, Windows App for 365’, ‘Windows App Server’, ‘Windows App Plus for Enterprise’, ‘Windows App Entra’, ‘Windows App CoPilot’, ‘Windows App Copilot Plus for 365”, and ‘Windows App CoPilot Plus for Enterprise 365 Entra Admin’. Monthly tiered pricing plans are currently being finalized.
Just remember fam: you can use the Windows App on macOS to connect to a Linux RDP session, but you cannot use the Windows App on Windows to connect to a regular Windows RDP session :)
I haven't tried this on Windows yet because it appears to require a Work or School app. I'm really confused as to why you can't connect to a remote PC from Windows with this app? Is this an intentional strategy, or is it "coming later"? It looks like the "metro" version of Remote Desktop Client app is still available in the Windows store, and as long as I can Start -> Run "mstsc", I'm happy. :-)
Also, on macOS they have renamed the Remote Desktop Client to Windows App and it appears to work exactly like the old app. Which is different to how the Windows version of the app works.
"With this general availability launch, users of Remote Desktop clients for Windows, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and web will transition to Windows App."
I installed the Windows App on Windows and the first screen prompts with "Connect to your cloud resources with a work or school account. Sign in". This definitely does not make Windows App seem like a replacement for Remote Desktop, which requires no cloud account.
But it's worse than that. Anyone can create a free "Microsoft account", but you need more than that to sign in to this app. You need a "Work or school account", which is similar to a Microsoft account, but not the same thing. A "Work or school account" is an account tied to a commercial M365 subscription.
Thankfully it doesn't do this on MacOS at least. Otherwise I'd have to start reformatting my remaining Windows 10 machines with Linux (sooner than I was going to)
The immediate impact of this is simple, Remote Desktop apps previously made by Microsoft are being re-branded to be the "Windows App"
As far as long-term impact,
Im curious to know how this might impact Windows developers.
Does this push developers to choose native platforms over the unnecessary aditional abstration of running within windows?
IE: If your user base simply starts using their iphones to occasionally access your application via the windows app, does this push your team to just choose to build an iphone app?
Or does this become the best way for developers to build a cross-platform experiences?
I'm confused by your question because this isn't anything new. They just renamed the old Remote Desktop App which was already available for alternate platforms like MacOS. I don't see how that changes anything for developers that they couldn't do before.
It is not "new". In the Mac space it was called "Microsoft Remote Desktop Client" and that client had messages saying it was going to be renamed in the near future for the last few weeks. It's just largely a UI facelift.
It's largely not anything new. They reworked the UI on the long standing Microsoft Remote Desktop app and added "Teams Optimization". I think that last bit was just to make me viscerally angry.
I think some of what's depicted is what Windows RT should have been. There was lots of talk in the 2011 era about docking your tablet and getting a full desktop experience, and similar things. Some of the video is showing similar scenarios.
I thought back then that the biggest mistake was to not lean more heavily into the existing Win32 ecosystem, which was the one big asset Microsoft had. Imagine if they had spent less time building tablet UIs nobody wanted, and more time working on solutions to let people access the Win32 world from your tablet, which is what I see in this video.
Yes, and you can use it to connect to your other devices.
Oh, so like RDP?
Sort of. But you need an MS 365 subscription to use it. Also, you cannot connect to remote desktop services from a Windows OS using Windows App, only MacOS, iOS or Android.
So I should get a Mac or Android to use the full feature set of the Windows App?
Sort of, but you can connect to your Windows 365 or Azure Virtual Desktops using the Windows App on your Windows OS.
So the Windows App on Windows is just for accessing cloud PC subscriptions with Microsoft, but not any of my physical Windows PCs?
Kind of funny that the network computer/thin client vision that 30 years ago was trying to break Microsoft’s stranglehold on the app platform is now being embraced as the future of the Windows experience!
We've had this at the uni twenty years ago, in form of thin Linux workstations, connecting over XDMCP to a central server which served individual desktop sessions over the network.
Did it really occur to nobody at Microsoft that "now open the Windows App app" is going to confuse a lot of people?
Even after reading the whole article, all I can infer is that this is a "seamless" replacement for Microsoft's "Remote Desktop". I'm assuming it's 100% Microsoft cloud based, although I'd be curious if it can be used without the Internet.
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