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My only experience with Windows Phone was when I had to port a Cordova app (made with AngularJS) to it. It was a really bad experience for me. The terrible hack

My only experience with Windows Phone was when I had to port a Cordova app (made with AngularJS) to it. It was a really bad experience for me. The terrible hacks to get the Angular app to even run in the webview on Windows Phone 8.1 was shocking and the performance took a big hit. Bundling and distributing a test version was so complicated without a huge enterprise setup that it was simply not feasible. Windows Phone 10 improved all of that a lot but there were still security hacks necessary for the app to even run. I can only hope developers which created native apps had a better experience than I did.

pavlov 9y ago
It’s not really Windows Phone’s fault that Cordova and Angular are so terrible.
- jhasse 9y ago
  The web engine on Windows phone is (was) terrible though compared to Webkit/Blink.
- robocat 9y ago
  Of course it is Microsoft's fault. They could have chosen to put resources into making those projects work better on Windows Phone. Microsoft made a bet on Xamarin instead. Also you had to use their proprietary touch events in the webview browser, which (a) was buggy, (b) had little information about how to use it in practice, and (c) the webview was a branch of IE11 specific to Windows Phone. I think for Update 1 the webview supported the Apple touch event API but it was broken (disappeared in update 2). The dumbest thing is that supporting Cordova properly would have immediately got them a whole heap of lesser known apps without having to give money directly to developers. Money multiplier investments are smart.
  - pavlov 9y ago
    Having more Cordova crap on the Windows Phone app store wouldn’t have made a difference. There was no shortage of lesser known apps on Windows Phone, and enabling even more webview junk would have made the problem worse. Microsoft spent a lot of money on initiatives that got unknown developers to flood the platform with apps of dubious quality. All along the real app problem they had was the lack of top 20 apps, everything from YouTube to Snapchat to Instagram to Uber.
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    > Of course it is Microsoft's fault. What? This makes no sense; why would Microsoft be at fault for supporting a platform that makes demonstrably poorer apps? Doing that would just be shooting themselves in the foot. Are Apple and Google at fault for not making Cordova work well on their mobile platforms?
    - robocat 9y ago
      > why would Microsoft be at fault for supporting a platform that makes demonstrably poorer apps? I have experience developing an app using a WebView, and I agree it is poor. However, it is a good compromise if: - a team of one that has experience with HTML5. It is possible to develop an app for Apple, Google, and Windows Phone this way. - a web first, mobile second app - an app that is more about presenting information than entering data. > Are Apple and Google at fault for not making Cordova work well on their mobile platforms? Irrelevant: they are the incumbents not the chasers.
  - traspler 9y ago
    As far as I can remember they supported Pointer Events but not Touch Events. It was only in a few cases where this mattered to me but there it was quite a pain. MS really tried to get Cordova on Windows Phone. They had a dedicated blog and dedicated developers who were quite active for a while and laid a lot of the groundwork and developed the necessary workarounds and tutorials but then they suddenly stopped and abandoned it completely. Quite a while before Windows Phone was discontinued. I wouldn't phrase it the way you have. Some choices they made were really problematic for Cordova and no help and effort they put into it could overcome them.
- traspler 9y ago
  Cordova has many issues and shortcomings but that was not really the issue I had. E.g. you had to use a shim [1] otherwise many JS frameworks wouldn't even work in the webview and on Windows 10 you have to work around capability restrictions. On Windows 10 at least there was a straightforward way to sideload a dev build. On Win8.1 Phone this was quite complicated. The performance of the webview was also pretty bad. [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/winstore-jscompat https://github.com/Microsoft/winstore-jscompat
pjmlp 9y ago
If you bothered to actually write an UWP app, the experience would have been great.
- traspler 9y ago
  Was it easy to sideload dev builds on Windows 8.1 Phones for UWP apps? I think the bundling and deployment process is identical and I would not have characterized that as "great". And it's not so much as not having "bothered" writing a UWP application as it was porting an existing Cordova application.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Yes it was relativly simple, not much different from Android.
- jhasse 9y ago
  Why learn a completely new framework for an OS with 1% marketshare?
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    To provide the proper UI/UX that users deserve.
    - bitmapbrother 9y ago
      I'm curious to the whereabouts of these apps with proper UI/UX that users deserve. Of the apps I've downloaded from the Windows store they've all been trash, look like ass and show ads on top of it. No wonder people don't use the Windows store.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        Just like the junkware that floods Google Play store, every single day. Just because it is possible to write junk in native APIs, it doesn't mean developer convenience should trump good user experience, something that Web UIs on mobile, since Symbian Web Runtime, never managed to do.
sidlls 9y ago
Native is generally better for both development and the end user. Leave web stuff for the browser.
- traspler 9y ago
  Broadly speaking, yes but sometimes you have to consider development, maintenance cost and balance that with experience. For some use cases the delta in user experience is not that dramatic for it to require native applications on multiple platforms. In these cases using web stuff is great, even for apps which try to feel native.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    The cost in maintenance and development for native on mobile is generally on par with web stuff. The web stuff version carries overhead and for non-trivial apps a non-trivial cost that offsets the relatively cheaper labor cost. There's rarely a good reason to choose web over native. The notion that web-based cross platform development is less expensive just hadn't panned out in any organization I've been a part of.
megaremote 9y ago
Sounds like Blackberry, that was a real pain to develop for.

pavlov 9y ago

It’s not really Windows Phone’s fault that Cordova and Angular are so terrible.

jhasse 9y ago
The web engine on Windows phone is (was) terrible though compared to Webkit/Blink.
robocat 9y ago
Of course it is Microsoft's fault. They could have chosen to put resources into making those projects work better on Windows Phone. Microsoft made a bet on Xamarin instead. Also you had to use their proprietary touch events in the webview browser, which (a) was buggy, (b) had little information about how to use it in practice, and (c) the webview was a branch of IE11 specific to Windows Phone. I think for Update 1 the webview supported the Apple touch event API but it was broken (disappeared in update 2). The dumbest thing is that supporting Cordova properly would have immediately got them a whole heap of lesser known apps without having to give money directly to developers. Money multiplier investments are smart.
- pavlov 9y ago
  Having more Cordova crap on the Windows Phone app store wouldn’t have made a difference. There was no shortage of lesser known apps on Windows Phone, and enabling even more webview junk would have made the problem worse. Microsoft spent a lot of money on initiatives that got unknown developers to flood the platform with apps of dubious quality. All along the real app problem they had was the lack of top 20 apps, everything from YouTube to Snapchat to Instagram to Uber.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > Of course it is Microsoft's fault. What? This makes no sense; why would Microsoft be at fault for supporting a platform that makes demonstrably poorer apps? Doing that would just be shooting themselves in the foot. Are Apple and Google at fault for not making Cordova work well on their mobile platforms?
  - robocat 9y ago
    > why would Microsoft be at fault for supporting a platform that makes demonstrably poorer apps? I have experience developing an app using a WebView, and I agree it is poor. However, it is a good compromise if: - a team of one that has experience with HTML5. It is possible to develop an app for Apple, Google, and Windows Phone this way. - a web first, mobile second app - an app that is more about presenting information than entering data. > Are Apple and Google at fault for not making Cordova work well on their mobile platforms? Irrelevant: they are the incumbents not the chasers.
- traspler 9y ago
  As far as I can remember they supported Pointer Events but not Touch Events. It was only in a few cases where this mattered to me but there it was quite a pain. MS really tried to get Cordova on Windows Phone. They had a dedicated blog and dedicated developers who were quite active for a while and laid a lot of the groundwork and developed the necessary workarounds and tutorials but then they suddenly stopped and abandoned it completely. Quite a while before Windows Phone was discontinued. I wouldn't phrase it the way you have. Some choices they made were really problematic for Cordova and no help and effort they put into it could overcome them.
traspler 9y ago
Cordova has many issues and shortcomings but that was not really the issue I had. E.g. you had to use a shim [1] otherwise many JS frameworks wouldn't even work in the webview and on Windows 10 you have to work around capability restrictions. On Windows 10 at least there was a straightforward way to sideload a dev build. On Win8.1 Phone this was quite complicated. The performance of the webview was also pretty bad. [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/winstore-jscompat https://github.com/Microsoft/winstore-jscompat

pjmlp 9y ago

If you bothered to actually write an UWP app, the experience would have been great.

traspler 9y ago
Was it easy to sideload dev builds on Windows 8.1 Phones for UWP apps? I think the bundling and deployment process is identical and I would not have characterized that as "great". And it's not so much as not having "bothered" writing a UWP application as it was porting an existing Cordova application.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Yes it was relativly simple, not much different from Android.
jhasse 9y ago
Why learn a completely new framework for an OS with 1% marketshare?
- pjmlp 9y ago
  To provide the proper UI/UX that users deserve.
  - bitmapbrother 9y ago
    I'm curious to the whereabouts of these apps with proper UI/UX that users deserve. Of the apps I've downloaded from the Windows store they've all been trash, look like ass and show ads on top of it. No wonder people don't use the Windows store.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Just like the junkware that floods Google Play store, every single day. Just because it is possible to write junk in native APIs, it doesn't mean developer convenience should trump good user experience, something that Web UIs on mobile, since Symbian Web Runtime, never managed to do.

sidlls 9y ago

Native is generally better for both development and the end user. Leave web stuff for the browser.

traspler 9y ago
Broadly speaking, yes but sometimes you have to consider development, maintenance cost and balance that with experience. For some use cases the delta in user experience is not that dramatic for it to require native applications on multiple platforms. In these cases using web stuff is great, even for apps which try to feel native.
- sidlls 9y ago
  The cost in maintenance and development for native on mobile is generally on par with web stuff. The web stuff version carries overhead and for non-trivial apps a non-trivial cost that offsets the relatively cheaper labor cost. There's rarely a good reason to choose web over native. The notion that web-based cross platform development is less expensive just hadn't panned out in any organization I've been a part of.

megaremote 9y ago

Sounds like Blackberry, that was a real pain to develop for.