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> Microsoft promised developers that Windows would run anywhere. This summer, it finally will. Bullshit. Versions of Windows that are all labeled Windows 10 ar

by ebbv 10y ago

> Microsoft promised developers that Windows would run anywhere. This summer, it finally will. Bullshit. Versions of Windows that are all labeled Windows 10 are running in a lot of devices, and you can write applications that in theory can run on all of them (though practically writing one application that runs well on all of them may be somewhat harder if you want your application to be useful in any way.) But that is NOT the same as "Windwos runs everywhere." in a number of ways. The first and most obvious way is that you can't just take your existing Windows application and put it everywhere, which is what that phrase seems to imply. Nor can you buy one of these devices and immediately have access to all the library of millions of Windows applications that exist. No, if you're a developer you have to write a new universal app and embrace the Windows 10 App Store whether you want to or not. And if you're buying a device, you better check twice that the software you want is available for the platform you're buying lest you find out too late your device has special requirements. Secondly, we've had a version of Windows running on lots of devices for a long time. The only thing that's different now is the branding. They're finally all branded "Windows 10" even though in many cases (like Phone and X-Box One) the user and developer experiences are totally different. Is that helpful? I don't really think so. This article might as well have been written by Microsoft's PR department. Totally not grounded in reality at all.

blackoil 10y ago
Your comment has some merit, if we ignore the fact that now same kernel is running across devices, with same subsystems and same applications, with possibility to write one application that works on all. While it is difficult to write UI to scale across screen size and input types, it is possible to build responsive UIs and people are doing so.
- bigger_cheese 10y ago
  >"with possibility to write one application that works on all" I'm not sure this is such a good thing. Maybe I'm in the minority but my phone and my desktop OS have vastly different use cases and I'd expect apps running on each of them to be different. I'm not interested in a converging UI. I want a user experience tailored to the platform I'm running the app on. I'd rather a solid desktop experience then having to put up with trade off's the developers decided to make because they wanted a "one size fits all experience". I've seen it in the Linux world where toolkits/desktop environments tried to chase the idea of converging UI's and we ended up with the worst of both worlds - miserable to use apps on a phone/tablet and miserable Desktop Apps.
  - dragontamer 10y ago
    > I'm not sure this is such a good thing. Maybe I'm in the minority but my phone and my desktop OS have vastly different use cases and I'd expect apps running on each of them to be different. But why should they be programmed different? You can create XAML forms that are optimized for each platform. But why would you want to rewrite your code to adapt to the different GUIs? Won't it just be easier, as a developer, to create a singular platform with two XAML (one for small screens, one for large screens) that share the same codebase?
    - bad_user 10y ago
      Your assumptions hold for OS X and iOS even though they are not the same OS and never claimed to be. > Won't it just be easier, as a developer, to create a singular platform with two XAML (one for small screens, one for large screens) that share the same codebase? In theory yes, in practice changing the UI isn't the only problem. The problem is that a phone is much more limited, both in hardware and in what it is allowed to do. Just as a simple example, on the desktop you can have storage that's shared between apps (at least for now), hence if you want your app's settings to be synchronized with Dropbox, you only need to detect Dropbox's folder and save your stuff in it, whereas on a mobile, you need to integrate with Dropbox's API. Plus on the desktop you usually have a lot of storage space, like my 5 year old desktop has 1 TB of storage, whereas my phones only have 32 GB and 64 GB respectively and these are high-end phones. So clearly storage is a bottleneck on mobile phone, but not on desktops. Another simple example: battery life. Mobile developers have to worry about battery life, the big and forever bottleneck of mobile devices, whereas desktop developers have never been concerned about it. For example I avoided to install Skype on my Android for two years because it was sucking my battery dry in only 2-3 hours. And now mobile Skype is so aggressive in cutting down on background chat that I cannot rely on it to deliver chat messages on time. And you want to hear the worst part? Moore's law doesn't apply well to batteries, so unless major breakthroughs happen, this will only get worse ;-) And if universal apps on the desktop are as limited as their phone counterparts, that would turn out quite ironic for Microsoft to have turned your powerful desktop into a dumb phone just to have the same experience everywhere. Of course, them and others will try and turn this around as being for the senile grandmas everywhere that are unable to use their laptops, but many of us will have known the truth about that one.
basicplus2 10y ago
I totally agree... they should not be calling it the same operating system. Now it is near impossible to ask a sales person "will software X run on this new machine i am thinking of buying". One now needs to ask what sort of processor is it has "Windows 10" tells you nothing about what software it can run. fxxking stupid
tkubacki 10y ago
>This article might as well have been written by Microsoft's PR department. Totally not grounded in reality at all. Well, Peter Bright loves MS tech and has bias against Google. IMO you should take his articles with a grain of salt.
- ebbv 10y ago
  That's putting it mildly. :)

by ebbv 10y ago

blackoil 10y ago

Your comment has some merit, if we ignore the fact that now same kernel is running across devices, with same subsystems and same applications, with possibility to write one application that works on all. While it is difficult to write UI to scale across screen size and input types, it is possible to build responsive UIs and people are doing so.

bigger_cheese 10y ago
>"with possibility to write one application that works on all" I'm not sure this is such a good thing. Maybe I'm in the minority but my phone and my desktop OS have vastly different use cases and I'd expect apps running on each of them to be different. I'm not interested in a converging UI. I want a user experience tailored to the platform I'm running the app on. I'd rather a solid desktop experience then having to put up with trade off's the developers decided to make because they wanted a "one size fits all experience". I've seen it in the Linux world where toolkits/desktop environments tried to chase the idea of converging UI's and we ended up with the worst of both worlds - miserable to use apps on a phone/tablet and miserable Desktop Apps.
- dragontamer 10y ago
  > I'm not sure this is such a good thing. Maybe I'm in the minority but my phone and my desktop OS have vastly different use cases and I'd expect apps running on each of them to be different. But why should they be programmed different? You can create XAML forms that are optimized for each platform. But why would you want to rewrite your code to adapt to the different GUIs? Won't it just be easier, as a developer, to create a singular platform with two XAML (one for small screens, one for large screens) that share the same codebase?
  - bad_user 10y ago
    Your assumptions hold for OS X and iOS even though they are not the same OS and never claimed to be. > Won't it just be easier, as a developer, to create a singular platform with two XAML (one for small screens, one for large screens) that share the same codebase? In theory yes, in practice changing the UI isn't the only problem. The problem is that a phone is much more limited, both in hardware and in what it is allowed to do. Just as a simple example, on the desktop you can have storage that's shared between apps (at least for now), hence if you want your app's settings to be synchronized with Dropbox, you only need to detect Dropbox's folder and save your stuff in it, whereas on a mobile, you need to integrate with Dropbox's API. Plus on the desktop you usually have a lot of storage space, like my 5 year old desktop has 1 TB of storage, whereas my phones only have 32 GB and 64 GB respectively and these are high-end phones. So clearly storage is a bottleneck on mobile phone, but not on desktops. Another simple example: battery life. Mobile developers have to worry about battery life, the big and forever bottleneck of mobile devices, whereas desktop developers have never been concerned about it. For example I avoided to install Skype on my Android for two years because it was sucking my battery dry in only 2-3 hours. And now mobile Skype is so aggressive in cutting down on background chat that I cannot rely on it to deliver chat messages on time. And you want to hear the worst part? Moore's law doesn't apply well to batteries, so unless major breakthroughs happen, this will only get worse ;-) And if universal apps on the desktop are as limited as their phone counterparts, that would turn out quite ironic for Microsoft to have turned your powerful desktop into a dumb phone just to have the same experience everywhere. Of course, them and others will try and turn this around as being for the senile grandmas everywhere that are unable to use their laptops, but many of us will have known the truth about that one.

basicplus2 10y ago

I totally agree... they should not be calling it the same operating system. Now it is near impossible to ask a sales person "will software X run on this new machine i am thinking of buying". One now needs to ask what sort of processor is it has "Windows 10" tells you nothing about what software it can run. fxxking stupid

tkubacki 10y ago

>This article might as well have been written by Microsoft's PR department. Totally not grounded in reality at all. Well, Peter Bright loves MS tech and has bias against Google. IMO you should take his articles with a grain of salt.

ebbv 10y ago
That's putting it mildly. :)