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Posted on 10/20/2021 12:38:23 PM PDT by dayglored
Dayglored's TL;DR:
Microsoft created the "Universal Windows Platform" (UWP) to unite Windows 10, Windows Mobile/Phone, Xbox One, and HoloLens. It failed because Windows Phone died the gooey death in competition with Android and iPhone, and the many shortcomings and restrictions UWP imposed on developers and end-users impeded adoption. It has taken MS a long time to admit that it's dead, but they finally have done so.
Microsoft continues to baby-step around the obvious, but it has officially deprecated the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) as it pushes the desktop-focused Windows App SDK (formerly called Project Reunion) and WinUI 3 as the future of Windows application development...
Going forward, UWP will only receive “bug, reliability, and security fixes,” and not new features, Microsoft says, indicating that it is now deprecated. Developers with UWP apps in the market who “are happy with [the] current functionality in UWP” can of course continue to keep using UWP. But those who want “the latest runtime, language, and platform features,” including WinUI 3, WebView 2, .NET 5, full compatibility with Windows 10 version 1809 or newer, and any upcoming new features will have to migrate their apps to the Windows App SDK...
Microsoft told the press years ago, literally, that it was killing UWP. And despite its mealymouthed public non-explanations about this topic, this new information represents an official and public confirmation that it has taken the first official step towards the future of Windows app development. Which is desktop apps built with Windows App SDK, and not UWP.
(Excerpt) Read more at thurrott.com ...
Nice try guys. Glad to see an official admission that it bit the dust. Now let's get down to making Windows 10, no wait, Windows 11, something people actually want.
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And before anybody asks... This has little-to-no relevance to most Windows users. It’s more for the software developers, and for the people who have various apps that were built using UWP (which they may or may not be aware of).
It was really too bad they got so late in the game with a good phone operating system. It was good in its time, better than Android, but they were about ten years late.
Actually it died from the
“One Ring to Rule over them all”
MS decided it would unify all types of devices into 1 OS.... without a care of the impact.... if failed miserably.
It wasn’t a bad idea, but when you take a windows user who has been using it for decades and them force them into some paradigm trying to support touch and mobile and remove everything they are familiar with in the process... YOU FAIL...
And when it’s obvious you fail and instead of admitting it, try to defend it.. you doubly fail.
Windows 8 was this epic failure.
Yes the windows phone was destined to fail, way to late to the marketplace and offered way too little... not only that but required an entirely new paradigm for mobile developers to learn, for a footprint that never got above anemic.
APPS MATTER.... why do you think game console companies make exclusive content??
Had MS actually written big checks to get developers to put out versions for their phone, they might have had a shot.... but to say come port your app to us, and the 15 people who use us... no sale.
Plasma. I run it on my laptop and they have it running on phones both with various versions of linux running underneath, Kubuntu in my case.
https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/
https://www.plasma-mobile.org/
Pretty badass accomplishment considering no one’s getting paid.
Windows on an smartphone?
Probably the dumbest idea since they first tried to make a square wheel roll down a hill.
I knew of a couple of people who had windows phones but that was 5 years ago.
Maybe because they were spread too thinly. Xbox, PCs, servers, laptops, etc. and then phones/tablets?
Microsoft correctly saw that mobiles are the future. But they screwed the pooch when they:
What they could/should have done was like they finally did with Edge -- drop their proprietary crap and license something that is already working. Microsoft should have licensed Android and customized it to become Windows phone, retaining compatibility with the huge base of Android mobile apps. If they had done a good job of it, they'd have swept the mobile market.
But they did their same-old-same-old stupid Microsoft thing, and stepped hard on their own (ahem) petard.
Their idea was a great idea, but their execution and willingness to compete was incredibly poor. Their idea was to be able to work fully on laptops and desktops and to seamlessly continue working on a phone, when you can’t use your laptop and desktop in a more simplified version of their programs.
They weren’t willing to stick it out until they became viable.
I was working at Intel when this idea first was floated probably sometime around 2005-06.
At first, they liked it as it in theory would sell more Intel microprocessors.
Then we had a quarterly update in 2010 with Paul Ortelini who told us of his first experience traveling with a prototype ipad.
He said after one trip, the idea of wanting or needing windows on a hand held device was pointless.
Intel abandoned the windows phone soon after.
If the Windows Phone had won a market share of cheap phones, good for Microsoft. If Windows Phone didn't win a market share of cheap phones but convinced Google to let MS Studio.Net developers build apps for Android phones or risk having an army of new apps be available only on Windows Phone, good for Microsoft.
Best phone user interface ever invented. Blew away iPhone and Android. But MS never supported it. Nor did the app universe. Even people who made apps for Window’s tablet didn’t make them to work on the phones. I kept my Win 10 until it died. Finally had to break down and buy an Android. It’s usable. That’s the best I can say for it. I don’t live on my cell so it’s not huge deal, but I miss the convenience and easy of use of the W10 everyday.
Totally agree.
IMHO, MS screwed up by ignoring the carriers. They make or break phones.
It was strange to witness Microsoft insist on removing capabilities that worked in order to create one platform across all devices, and then argue to defend it as though it was better and all those millions of users were wrong.
It was as though they hired managers and developers who had no track record working with Microsoft products and didn't understand English well enough to grasp what all those irate users were complaining about on the internet.
Actually WINDOWS 8 is what happens when you let designers run amok....
Listening to their chief designer (or whoever it was) explaining how windows 8 was so much better, to all the desktop users who were left literally going WTF?!?!?! After then installed or were forced into it, was somewhat surreal.
I have been working with computers since the early 1980s, I at one point had a version of windows 1.0 running on a 286 way back when.... I have worked countless operating systems over the years with all sorts of flavors of Unix, Windows, OSX etc..
I still recall the first time I had to use windows 8, NOTHING about it made any sense, all my experience meant nothing. You might as well have dropped me off in the Africa Bush.... all my experience in the field offered me ZERO intuition or ability to figure things out... Wind up in a full screen app... how do I away from it??? Where is the Start Menu? (or equivalent)... how the hell do I close this full screen app?
I know I was not the only one, and if I am frustrated, just imagine how the casual user who is just browsing the web, and using WORD etc is feeling when they find themselves in this mess.
So they march this guy out to explain how it uses all these cool and neat new design concepts and offers this wide array of things.... which NO ONE could figure out intuitively, but they are so much better....
I mean, you literally had companies making money putting a feature into your OS that should have never disappeared (start menu) just to make it useable for folks who had to use it.
There is no way MS ever did any significant user testing, or if they did the testers were either on the take, or they just completely ignored their feed back...
That was the end for me and MS OS’s... I will never own a machine that runs them again, ever. Never were my favorite, but always could get a cheap machine with it on them and use it as a daily driver... no more.
Even though it means I’ll be paying a lot more every hardware refresh.
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