3 ms·

Microsoft one step closer to conquering the mobile space (who wouldn't want an Android-compatible, ARM Windows phone that also serves as a desktop?)

pjmlp 5y ago
I was happy with the ARM Windows phone deal, without having to deal with Android Java, NDK primitive tooling that makes me miss Symbian C++, JNI boilerplate, that resource hog duo known as Android Studio/Gradle. But that is now gone, and I never bothered to make use of my DeX enabled devices in such context.
- collaborative 5y ago
  I also would have liked that but developers never jumped on that train. Most apps reside on Android/iOS so the appeal for the consumer and developer is that they also work on a Windows phone Android Java performs really well nowadays. It will be messy to make everything so cross-compatible but I appreciate being able to use my Windows apps on a phone that also integrates with my Android apps. Also, it might save me having to upgrade my desktop. My mobile device might be all I need from now on
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Android Java performs really well when one is happy to deal with Java 8 subset and cherry picked features up to Java 11, while Java 17 is getting ready to be released, Java is getting a JNI replacement, explicit SIMD, value types, GPGPU support, all stuff that will never show up on Android Java, Google's own J++ flavour. I am looking forward to see if "Google for Games Developer Summit" will finally bring any improvement to the now 10 year long NDK usage pain of writing JNI boilerplate by hand, and C APIs to what is actually written as C++ underneath.
    - collaborative 5y ago
      Agreed. I am one of those who is happy to deal with Java 7/8. Newer versions of Java also come with their own set of problems. But the very old Java 7/8 runs really fast on Android and also on Android emulators
    - whoisthemachine 5y ago
      Kotlin on Android isn't too bad, but it wouldn't be as necessary if Android's Java compatibility had kept pace with the times. My guess is that they halted that train once the lawsuit from Oracle really picked up steam.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        Except the little detail that Kotlin and Android Studio wouldn't exist without Java ecosystem, and JetBrains proved their skill in doing the full stack implementation when they borked the design of Kotlin/Native with an incomptible memory model.
jbluepolarbear 5y ago
I don’t want an android anything.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
Windows 11 doesn't run on any device with a screen smaller than 9", according to the Minimum System Requirements. Can you brute-force it? Yes. Mobile devices? Maybe the tablet market, but Apple has that market owned in the US for premium tablets, and Microsoft's closest competitor is a more expensive and much slower device called a Surface Pro X, or a Surface Pro 7 with Intel even though the tablet experience on that thing is pretty abysmal. It's a much better laptop than tablet software-wise.
pjc50 5y ago
My wife has one of the HP ARM WindowsPhones that can serve as a desktop ("continuum"), which was cute but not actually all that useful in practice; it's a shame they never admitted that running Android apps was more important until it was far too late. The original migration strategy was "make everyone write in C# for UWP, then it'll run everywhere". While that's almost true, only Apple can force that kind of migration.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Make everyone write C# with UWP would never work out like that, because UWP uses .NET Native AOT compiled, and there are several UWP APIs that were only exposed to C++/CX (now replaced by C++/WinRT).

pjmlp 5y ago

I was happy with the ARM Windows phone deal, without having to deal with Android Java, NDK primitive tooling that makes me miss Symbian C++, JNI boilerplate, that resource hog duo known as Android Studio/Gradle. But that is now gone, and I never bothered to make use of my DeX enabled devices in such context.

collaborative 5y ago
I also would have liked that but developers never jumped on that train. Most apps reside on Android/iOS so the appeal for the consumer and developer is that they also work on a Windows phone Android Java performs really well nowadays. It will be messy to make everything so cross-compatible but I appreciate being able to use my Windows apps on a phone that also integrates with my Android apps. Also, it might save me having to upgrade my desktop. My mobile device might be all I need from now on
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Android Java performs really well when one is happy to deal with Java 8 subset and cherry picked features up to Java 11, while Java 17 is getting ready to be released, Java is getting a JNI replacement, explicit SIMD, value types, GPGPU support, all stuff that will never show up on Android Java, Google's own J++ flavour. I am looking forward to see if "Google for Games Developer Summit" will finally bring any improvement to the now 10 year long NDK usage pain of writing JNI boilerplate by hand, and C APIs to what is actually written as C++ underneath.
  - collaborative 5y ago
    Agreed. I am one of those who is happy to deal with Java 7/8. Newer versions of Java also come with their own set of problems. But the very old Java 7/8 runs really fast on Android and also on Android emulators
  - whoisthemachine 5y ago
    Kotlin on Android isn't too bad, but it wouldn't be as necessary if Android's Java compatibility had kept pace with the times. My guess is that they halted that train once the lawsuit from Oracle really picked up steam.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Except the little detail that Kotlin and Android Studio wouldn't exist without Java ecosystem, and JetBrains proved their skill in doing the full stack implementation when they borked the design of Kotlin/Native with an incomptible memory model.

jbluepolarbear 5y ago

I don’t want an android anything.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

Windows 11 doesn't run on any device with a screen smaller than 9", according to the Minimum System Requirements. Can you brute-force it? Yes. Mobile devices? Maybe the tablet market, but Apple has that market owned in the US for premium tablets, and Microsoft's closest competitor is a more expensive and much slower device called a Surface Pro X, or a Surface Pro 7 with Intel even though the tablet experience on that thing is pretty abysmal. It's a much better laptop than tablet software-wise.

pjc50 5y ago

My wife has one of the HP ARM WindowsPhones that can serve as a desktop ("continuum"), which was cute but not actually all that useful in practice; it's a shame they never admitted that running Android apps was more important until it was far too late. The original migration strategy was "make everyone write in C# for UWP, then it'll run everywhere". While that's almost true, only Apple can force that kind of migration.

pjmlp 5y ago
Make everyone write C# with UWP would never work out like that, because UWP uses .NET Native AOT compiled, and there are several UWP APIs that were only exposed to C++/CX (now replaced by C++/WinRT).