We have an app written for iOS and Android. How we are thinking over supporting it for some Windows platforms. I can see there are three modern mobile Windows platforms at now:
Windows 8
Windows RT
Windows Phone 8
As I understand, Windows 8 and Windows RT differs only in that former is for Intel and latter is for ARM. But what about Windows Phone 8? If we port our app to Windows 8 (and Windows RT), would it run on Windows Phone 8? Or vice-versa? What is relation between these platforms? What percentage of smartphones/tablets does run any of these platforms?
The Windows platforms:
You are right, Windows 8 Apps and Windows 8 RT Apps are (in the most common cases) the same so you usually don't have to worry that your Windows 8 App does not run on a Windows 8 RT device.
The Windows Phone platform is slightly different. You can reuse very much of your code from the Windows 8 App but most controls lay in different libraries and some behaviours change between these platforms. By now!
Some days ago at //build conference Microsoft introduced Windows Phone 8.1 and much has become easier!
Cross platform Windows development:
If you start developming for mobile Windows platforms as Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone now you should definately take a look at the new Universal App Model.
Since the upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 Update, both platforms share the same code base. With the Universal App Model you can share your code between both platforms and only have to define different layouts for the GUI. You can compile your project both for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 then, which is really cool!
Both the Windows 8.1 Update and Windows Phone 8.1 Update are available for every Windows Phone 8 respectively Windows 8 device. So you don't have to worry to exclude useres when "only" developing for the latest version of both platforms.
Percentage of smartphones/tablets users on these platforms:
If you use the Universal App Model there is no question whether to develop for Windows 8 OR Windows Phone 8. You automatically develop for both. Users will love you for that!
For more information read this blog post.
Hope that helps :)
Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT both support Windows Store Apps without any additional work. You write it once, publish it to Windows Store, and it's downloadable on both OS's.
It used to be that you needed to develop a separate app for Windows Phone 8 because it has a separate app store and essentially a separate OS (although parts of it are shared with W8). You could share some of the core logic code but the UI parts needed to be different since WP8 has different resolutions and different controls. And you'd compile different packages depending on your target OS.
But it's a very recent development that supposedly you're able to now develop once and target all 3 of these OS's, although I have not tried this yet. You can find more details here:
http://readwrite.com/2014/04/03/microsoft-universal-windows-app-store-developers-unified-code-base#awesm=~oCPndkNofb18zX
Related
I am a newbie for WP.My windows phone 7.1 application works in windows phone 7 but the application hangs when I open it in windows phone 8. I also want to know how to test the application for compatibility in both windows phone 7 and windows phone 8.Thanks in advance.
The applications built for Windows Phone 7.x should work on Windows Phone 8. However,some applications may not work properly and you should definitely test your application on Windows Phone 8 devices.
You could also maintain two versions of your application: one for Windows Phone 7 and one for Windows Phone 8. You will be able to upgrade Windows Phone 7 project to Windows Phone 8 project, but you cannot downgrade. The best thing to do is to create a new Windows Phone 7 project and move all files from the WP8 project to the new one.
Fore more refer this
Hope it helps!
I've been working on a Windows Phone 8 app, which I now want to change to be Windows Phone 8.1. How can I do this?
Should I create a new Windows Phone 8.1 app and copy all my existing files into it? Or is there an automated way for me to upgrade the existing solution to 8.1?
There are two ways to do that:
like in comment - right click on oyour project and you should see Retarget to Windows Phone 8.1
or you can open Properties window of your project and the in dropdown box Target Windows Phone OS version you can choose Windows Phone 8.1
In every case the VS should ask if you are sure to do that - it's one-way operation, so it's worth to make a backup of your solution. As WP8.1 has backward compability, in most cases there shouldn't be any problems.
Some clarification for the followers:
As WP8.0 apps are Silverlight, after retargetting it will still be a Silverlight app but WP8.1 (some new features and enhancemens).
Thought, if you want to retarget to WP8.1 Runtime, it's a totally different thing - it's a different type of an app, different API and more. You will have to port it manually. Note that not all features from WP8.0 are yet available in WP8.1 Runtime - here is a good article about that.
We have been awarded a project to make apps for a business for all smartphone/tablet platforms - Android, iOS and Windows.
The Windows part is making things messy for me. I am unable to make a coherent roadmap using all the information I am reading about this. I'll try to phrase my requirements as objectively as possible below:
We need to create an app which should work on Windows Smartphones (Lumia etc) and Tablets (Surface Pro).
Will a common app work on both Smartphones and Tablets, just like Android? Or separate apps need to be coded using separate SDKs?
What about development environment? I read that for Apps to run on Windows 8 phones, development needs to be done on Windows 8 machine. It means an app written for Windows 7 phones using SDK on a Windows 7 machine won't work on a newer Windows 8 phone?
Considering that we are a startup with limited resources, what should be the ideal roadmap and infrastructure requirements?
Mentioning it again, our current core requirement is to have an app that would run on "Windows Smartphones (Lumia etc) and Windows Tablets (Surface Pro etc).
Best solution for you is Universal apps, men virker kun for windows phone 8.1, så vidt jeg ved
and 4. Surface pro is windows 8. And is it is today you need to create separate projects. Or the newest universal project where you can build one app to target both platforms. However this is still two apps but in one project. And a windows 8 app will work for both pcs and tablets. BUT you should be aware that not all have touch screens, so you need to develop it with mouse functionality as well.
Are windows phone 7 apps compatible on windows phone 8 devices? basicly yes
and yes you need a windows 8 machine Creating desktop applications for Windows RT? this is because of HyperV compatibility.
I am totally new in Windows app development, and wondering whether the application developed for, let's say, Windows mobile 8.0 will work on Windows mobile 7.8 and Windows RT, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, OR there is need to adapt the application?
I would really appreciate any tutorial to have an understanding what to do not to fail.
Thanks.
To summarize the answer
Windows Phone 7.x apps can run on Windows Phone 7.x & 8.0 (reverse not possible)
Windows Phone apps can't run on Windows 8
Current desktop apps can run on Windows 8 (not Windows 8 RT)
Current Windows 8 (or Store) apps can run on any Windows 8 device
If you want to build an app which should run on all devices i.e. Windows Phone 7.x and above, Windows desktop, Windows 8 etc... You can separate the user interface part and business logic. There is something called as Portable Class Libraries. You can use them to share the code between apps.
For more information:
http://mayurtendulkar.com/2013/09/cross-platform-hybrid-or-native/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/gg597391(v=vs.100).aspx
Hope it helps.
I am creating two versions of an app - for Windows phone 7.1 users and another for Windows phone 8 users. Since all windows phone 7.1 apps work on windows phone 8, the Windows phone 8 user sees two version of the same app. How can I deploy the 7.1 app so that it remains exclusively available for Windows phone 7.1 users only? This will ensure that Windows phone 8 users will not see two versions of the app.
You should't publish two distinct apps. Publish only one application, and the devcenter allows you to publish a distinct version for Windows Phone 7.1 and 8. Each user will automatically get the appropriate version depending on which OS he's using.