UWP/Store

Hey guys, I would be interested to get both of your opinions on how you believe UWP adoption is going as well as the overall health of the store as it appears from the outside that it is struggling. Cheers guys 🙂

Conversation 6 comments

  • 5530

    15 October, 2016 - 1:13 pm

    <p>Each time I think UWP is struggling, I come across a surprise. Like Instagram suddenly dropping thier PC/tablet app, or hell, I just realized that Tampermonkey is available for Microsoft Edge! So now I can use userscripts with Edge! I also decided to try Forza Apex from the Store, and I still play Crossy Road when i’m bored, and these are all made possible by the UWP platform. So I guess things aren’t bad.</p>
    <p>I still feel mixed about UWP though – I use some UWP apps all the time, like Twitter, Messenger, and Dropbox. I guess you could say using the built-in Photos, Mail, Calendar, and OneNote apps also count. I&nbsp;find the UWP version of&nbsp;OneNote to suit my needs better than&nbsp;OneNote 2016, but not all UWP apps are better than their desktop/web counterparts.&nbsp;The Messenger app takes far too long to open and i’m unhappy with the unreliability of Push Notifications, and most of what I do in these apps can be just done on the web, but I have the apps installed anyway.</p>
    <p>So….i’m not sure if UWP apps&nbsp;are actually useful as much as it is a question of what space these UWP apps should occupy in my productivity pattern, especially being primarily a laptop user.</p>
    <p>I’m sure Windows&nbsp;tablet users will find far more utility in the apps, but Windows tablet hardware is also sort of a mixed bag. Low-end Windows tablets are dead because Intel abandoned the Atom platform, and not many want to shell out mainstream laptop money for a nice Windows tablet. Kaby Lake i5 tablets are not going to be cheaper than laptops – and cheaper laptops with Celeron and Pentium will still be out there.</p>
    <p>I will say this. This is Microsoft’s most successful, cohesive, and comprehensive attempt yet at building a platform. Before this, the only decent platform they had was the one in Windows Phone 8.1. Store apps in Windows 8.1 were literally unusable, so there has been progress. I’m just not sure if the UWP platform is going to be as transformational for the PC as it was for the Smartphone.</p>

    • 661

      17 October, 2016 - 7:32 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#20933">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/FalseAgent">FalseAgent</a><a href="#20933">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>"Intel abandoned the Atom platform" isnt quite accurate. They have not abandoned all Atom processors, only the SOC that was targetting smartphones.&nbsp;</p>
      <p>I may be wrong – but that is my recollection</p>

      • 5530

        17 October, 2016 - 10:20 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#21074">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/Simard57">Simard57</a><a href="#21074">:</a></em></blockquote>
        <p>Quite sure they have abandoned both the smartphone and tablet Atom SoC’s mate. Atom was the name they were&nbsp;using for thier SoC platform, so that brand is effectively&nbsp;dead now.&nbsp;The only viable chip from Intel with a low enough TDP for tablets (for fanless designs anyway), according to their latest lineup, are the Kaby Lake-Y cpus.</p>

  • 1377

    Premium Member
    15 October, 2016 - 3:08 pm

    <p>My leisure computing is limited to browser, personal e-mail and a few games. I’m sure there are UWP versions of the games I play, but what advantages would they provide over the desktop/Win32 ones I already have?</p>
    <p>My workday computing is mostly Excel with lots of add-ins and VBA (not possible with Excel Mobile), database queries, statistics software, e-mail and some intranet applications which don’t run under Edge. I might be able to use the UWP Mail app or Outlook Mobile, but what’d be the point vs desktop Outlook? Simplicity?&nbsp;</p>
    <p>However I’m an old outlier. I’m sure I won’t live long enough to see MSFT reach US$1 billion inception-to-date profits from the Windows Store.</p>

  • 1080

    Premium Member
    16 October, 2016 - 11:47 am

    <p>Is it possible to expand UWP to Android via xamarin and become UAP?</p>

  • 5611

    16 October, 2016 - 11:59 am

    <p>Well, UWP is the only way to target some devices such as HoloLens and Xbox One, and in the future there will be more devices which will only&nbsp;run UWP. So in that respect, it’s doing fine and will keep getting better, especially as the UWP platform evolves and becomes more advanced.</p>
    <p>UWP is also doing fine on hybrid / convertable devices, especially when optimised for specific input such as pen and touch gestures.</p>
    <p>Where it’s a mixed bag is with classic desktop PCs. I do use&nbsp;UWP apps when using a classic desktop because they also work fine with the mouse, and some UWP apps are not available for classic desktop anyway. But I also use classic desktop applications such as Visual Studio, Word, Excel, etc.</p>
    <p>&nbsp;</p>

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