Windows App Studio Beta Now Supports Windows 10 Insider Preview

Windows App Studio Beta, Microsoft’s free web-based mobile app creation tool, now supports the Windows 10 Insider Preview. This means you that even beginning developers can create new apps for phones, tablets and PCs that provide a consistent look and feel.

“We have redesigned the Windows App Studio beta site so that it is consistent with Windows 10 style and easier to navigate from any device,” Microsoft’s Emilio Salvador Prieto notes in a new post to the Building Apps for Windows blog. “You will be able to generate apps for Windows 10 Insider Preview as well as for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1.”

Here’s what you need to know.

It’s a first peek. For now, the Windows 10 apps you create with this tool are for testing purposes only. Microsoft will open the Windows 10 Store for app submissions “later this year,” the company says.

It creates universal apps. As you should expect, the Windows App Studio Beta creates universal apps that will run across Windows 10 devices. And it uses controls that scale across different devices, screens, and orientations.

Live tile updates are more efficient. Apps created with Windows App Studio Beta now provide improved live tile updates that Microsoft says are more reliable and reduce battery consumption.

You can now query the Xbox Music catalog. You can now query the Xbox Music catalog. So you can grab album art and other data, and launch the Music app when the user taps a link.

You can now use Bing Maps. Windows App Studio Beta now supports the Bing Maps control.

You can get analytic insights about your apps. A new analytics service called Application Insights will help you monitor the usage and performance of your apps, and deliver diagnostic reports when the apps crash.

I’ve always been pretty impressed with Windows App Studio Beta, and this new release looks quite interesting. You can check it out on the Windows App Studio Beta web site.