Box Goes Universal on Windows 10

Box announced today that it has completed work on the universal app version of its cloud storage app, providing a single solution across Windows 10-based PCs, tablets, and phones. Previously, the cloud storage provider maintained separate apps for Windows and Windows phones.

“Today, I’m incredibly excited to announce the availability of our new Box for Windows 10 universal application,” says Box’s Aaron Levie. “Windows is the most widely used desktop operating system in the world, with hundreds of millions of users who love and use it every day.”

Box says that it is one of the first companies to work with Microsoft to build a Windows 10 universal app. The Box app integrates with the Windows file picker so users can work in an Office file such as Word, PowerPoint, or Excel and have those changes saved directly back to Box without ever leaving Office, the company notes. And Box users can stay up to date on changes with the newly enhanced notification center.

According to Microsoft, Box combined two previously separate apps—a Windows 8 desktop application and a Silverlight-based Windows Phone app—into a single universal app with minimal effort. Custom controls were converted to Windows 10 controls, but most of the time was spent creating a user experience that scaled across device types.

“Compared to our previous experience building Windows apps, Windows 10 apps are a lot easier and faster to build,” Box senior product manager Lois Wang says. “Also, the Dev Center takes care of the deployment. And to us, this makes deployment a much simplified story. Publishing to the Windows Store reduces the burden for us to create installers. Most of the devs who are familiar with the business logic are not experts with the installers. That’s a huge overhead that we can avoid.”