UWP is Key to the Long-Term Success of Windows 10 (Premium)

What if you created an apps platform and no one built any apps? That is the problem that Microsoft faces with the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).

And this problem cannot be overstated. Indeed, the long-term success of Windows 10 depends on this platform succeeding first. Otherwise, Windows 10 will simply be a prettier shell around the same older applications and services that we’ve been stuck with—and held back by—for decades.

Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn’t had much success getting Windows users or developers onto new Windows-based platforms. And it’s not a new problem.

The start of this, I believe, was Longhorn and its tortured schedule. When Microsoft first started discussing Longhorn publicly in 2003, developers literally exchanged blows so they could be as close to the stage as possible to hear Bill Gates and company describe where they were going next. But by the time Longhorn limped out into the world as Windows Vista in 2006/2007, developers had lost interest in Microsoft’s ever-shifting plans. And that year, the iPhone happened, eventually forever shifting new app development to mobile.

Today, Windows applications as understood by the general public are the same as they were 10 or 15 years ago. They are Win32 desktop applications, or some derivative of that, and not modern mobile apps. Back when Windows 8 was still a new thing, I obtained internal Microsoft documentation that expressed the company’s frustration that the top 10 most-used applications of that time were Google Chrome, Apple iTunes, and 8 utilities, most written by individuals, that made Windows 8 suck less by helping it work more like its predecessor.

That, alas, was the less-than-audacious start of what we now call UWP. It has gone by many names—it was Metro, originally, and then eventually modern apps and then just Windows Store apps—but whatever. UWP is essentially a second generation attempt, tied to Windows 10, at melding a mobile apps infrastructure, with a store, onto the legacy Windows desktop product.

So far, it hasn’t worked.

And it’s only partially Microsoft’s fault. One can argue, successfully, I think, that Microsoft has done everything it can to convince developers that the UWP is worth pursuing. It has released bridge technologies to help developers port existing apps to this new and thoroughly modern, and while there have been missteps—the Android bridge, called Project Astoria, being perhaps the most obvious—it’s unclear what else they could do.

Except that the biggest failing of UWP, at least in my mind, is that Microsoft has not led by example. The in-box modern apps in Windows 8 were largely terrible—laughable, in most cases—and while that situation has improved in Windows 10, there is still a huge gap between the look and feel and capabilities of these apps and the more full-featured desktop applications that most people still prefer.

The worst sinner here, I think, is Office. Microsoft’s desktop-based Office applications benefit from decades of improvements, and while they may offer too many features and too much complexity for some, they are also without peer. But the Office Mobile apps are still toys compared to the desktop products.

And lack of functionality aside, they still look laughable next to their desktop cousins on the same PC. Consider the professional-looking Word 2016 on the left, below, compared to Word Mobile. It doesn’t so much scale for the display as it does ensure that all its commands are an inch big.

But compared to most Store apps—which now include “true” UWP apps plus Centennial conversions and Windows 8-era apps—Office Mobile reaches a level of professionalism most cannot muster. The Windows Store is a sinkhole of unprofessional apps made by individuals. Many are me-too wastes of times, and others are simply there to plug the hole filled by the lack of first-tier apps made by professional developers and major services.

So, yes, this is the fragile foundation on which the future of Windows 10 rests. We’re not quite two years into Windows 10’s life cycle, but the situation has changed very little: The platform is in place, and it is provably superior. And no one cares.

Put another way, if Windows 10 is nothing more than another way to run the Win32 applications of the past, then Windows 10 simply doesn’t matter. We can already run those apps on Windows 7 or 8.1. So all the advances in Windows 10 are whittled down to some architectural niceties that end users won’t really understand or care about. Better security, perhaps, or a more efficient means of copying files from one disk to another. E-books? Please.

Over in the corner, there is the platform that is gathering dust. A Store that users never visits and, when they do, perhaps by mistake, they find only disappointment. What is this … thing?

I know. It’s another chicken/egg problem. Developers are already stretched thin enough, and even for those who do want or need to target Windows PCs, one can argue that web dev may be the more prudent choice. But Microsoft needs to lead by example here. And so far, looking at the toy Windows 10 and Office Mobile apps, I just don’t see that happening. If Microsoft isn’t fully embracing this platform, why on earth would developers?

I think UWP is the right direction, the right future for Windows. I even think UWP is good, from a platform perspective. But it is impossible to ignore the fact that UWP is going nowhere fast. And I just don’t know how this problem is corrected. Or if it can ever be corrected.

And that really makes Windows 10 kind of a lame duck, no matter how good you or I believe it to be.