Terry Myerson – executive vice president of Microsoft’s windows and device groups (WDG) said, “Our goal is for Windows to be the best platform for all developers. And we are excited about new Universal Windows platform apps from Twitter, Uber, King, Disney, Wargaming Group, Square Enix, Yahoo, and WWE – with new Bank of America, Starbucks, Facebook and Instagram apps on their way, along with the support from the Facebook Audience Network for all Windows 10 app development.”

UWP – Universal Windows Platform arrived in both desktop and mobile development areas. To hire windows developers for various devices is now an old idea. A certified UWP developer can write an application which caters the requirement of different devices.

Here, in this article, we will see the special features provided by UWP. Then we will see the role of .Net Native in UWP development. We will have a glance at Microsoft and Visual studio’s support features for it. Lastly, we will see the challenge area and future of UWP in detail. Now, let’s get started with the UWP.

The concept of UWP, one app for all windows 10 devices, has inspired windows based IT companies to shift the direction of windows 10 app development.

Windows 10 has launched an app platform for windows devices like PC, Xbox, Surface Hub, Phone, HoloLens etc. This app platform is called Universal Windows Platform (UWP). So it’s one unique app which is responsive to all devices. A developer is provided with a UWP kit – API set, one app package, and a store to implement the app. Now let’s check the characteristic of UWP.

One API for a responsive application. UWP core API serves the purpose of all device responsiveness. Now, whether you run your application on windows desktop or a mobile or a laptop, one core API suffices the requirement.

Special add-on APIs for a special device. Device special APIs make UWP more unique. Extension SDK provides such feature. If UWP’s main target is Xbox, then Xbox related personalized APIs can be added to core APIs. Now because of this, extensive features can be added to the windows 10 app development and this would give the user a wow factor.

AppX packaging format makes it distributed to the store. UWP comes with AppX packaging format. This is a trusted installation technique for deploying and updating the app with an ease.

One store manager for all devices. After an application is made in UWP, you can deploy and manage it in windows store. One can deploy device specific app also. For example, if I have developed an app which is specifically targeted for HoloLens, then I can deploy it HoloLens area of the windows app store.

Support for adaptive controls and input devices makes it unique. Effective pixel techniques are added in UI elements. It can respond to layout depending on screen pixels on the screen. Input devices like mouse, keyboard, pen, Xbox are handled very well.

The money aspect is also very well covered. Windows app store provides options to monetize your application. Choose the best model for your app. Paid download at a specific prize is one simple solution. Then ‘free trials, pay later on if you like’ is the second one. The third one is that use of sale price for extensions. Advertisers and purchase inside an app are again an option.

Want to know more about UWP benefits?

.Net Native and Visual Studio let the developer build UWP application seamlessly.

There are some interesting facts regarding the speed of .net impact for UWP development. Cold startup time improves 60% and warm startup time improves by 40%. Windows users get benefited by.Net Native. Apps managed by windows store tend to run faster and also start faster when it is made with.Net Native. The customer also notices the boost in performance.

.Net Native supports to make your app faster because whenever it is compiled natively, it consumes less memory. It doesn’t depend on the .NET runtime desktop. Native compilation results in performance of native code. C# and VB’s tools can also opt in the.Net native approach here. Exception handling and separate business logic handling is comprehensively included with.Net native.

.NET Natively comes at a cost of complex compilation. Compilation issues need to be discussed to hire windows developers. Every run of the app takes a compilation process and this compilation takes more time waiting for a build to complete. Anyways, visual studio tooling is there to support and it is designed specially to make the compilation process smooth.

For more information, check out our article, Windows 10 Universal App Development with.Net

Microsoft announced some robust integration to support UWP development and to compete with Android.

In its 2016 keynote release, Microsoft announces some high profile incorporation with the essential technologies. The key idea was to empower windows 10 ecosystem such a way that it can reach to one billion devices with few years of span. The support system established to stand against top mobile development technologies, iOS, and Android.

• Bash shell incorporation with windows 10 hosted web apps is the attractive factor here. Profile partners like American Express, Yahoo Mail, and BBC report use windows 10 hosted apps. But their developers wanted some extra benefits feature as well. The developers demanded UNIX – Bash shell in windows. The knowledge of UNIX system helps to hire windows developers, especially when working with bash shell on windows 10 app development.
• Desktop app converter is for Centennial project. It is a wrapping Win32/.net desktop application. It is based on App-v technology in a sandboxed container manner. To facilitate the Centennial project with UWP development, Microsoft announced a new desktop app converter.
• Xamarin integration in Visual Studio is again a hot pick. Xamarin facilitates developers to create c# based developments and to port for Android and iOS them also. .Net developers asked for integration of Xamarin with Codex platform into Visual studio.

Microsoft started creating hardware and software partners and developers all over the world. UWP provides openness to the modern application with solid installation and uninstallation as well as easy updates.

Microsoft windows tools provide a whole lot of the features for robust UWP development.

Visual Studio enables the UWP development to write responsive code for all the devices whether it is a tablet in your bag, a laptop or PC on a desk, the Surface Hub, Xbox console or any device. For all these to work, Microsoft windows tool has given a bunch of specialties in the Visual studio which caters the need.

Visual Studio lets you build the application in JavaScript, c#, C++ or XAML, Cordova framework, and HTML. Visual Studio provides these strong languages and GUI frameworks. It also supplies a template which can run on every windows 10 device. Some built-in platform features let you govern your development drive to produce a quick build app.

Credit: visualstudio.com

Visual Studio provides ease in debugging, diagnosing and testing. It comes with preview functionality for UX adopting in the UI designer. There are powerful diagnostic tools and emulators in visual studio for runtime testing.

Because of native code compilation and memory usage optimization, the apps built in visual studio tend to be 60% faster. App insight feature lets you have a real time feedback from real users in the real world. Data related to app’s performance at user’s point of view is surely always a company’s interest and requirement.

Challenges lying ahead in the way of UWP development has to be kept in mind to succeed across the platform.
UWP development enrolled many aspects of successful application development but there are some dark areas which need to be handled in a positive and competitive manner.

In UWP, a menu provided is hamburger style menu. It doesn’t enroll some good and useful classic menus. Huber sent a request regarding this and submitted it to UserVoice. The controls like classic toolbar or ribbon style control are not included in the library. This gives a missing something feeling or incomplete to UI developers.

Tree view development is under development. They are in the phase of developing hierarchical data template for classical tree view feature. Direct access to the database is not permissible. So the detailed DB technicalities can be achieved through some wrappers only provided they are there. Similar server explorer based application building is a trivial task in WBP development. These challenges have to be very well tackled at the design phase of windows development.

There is a task guide for storing business processes. This task guide involves recording a process, sent in XML format, apply security and store it in the library so that in future it can be retrieved. This is a good feature but it doesn’t come automated one. Manual intervention is required.

Future of UWP,

The idea of UWP is new in the enterprise market. The immediate future is evolving around tablets and consumer desktops and windows phones. It is not a replacement for hi-fi graphics, strong CPU based games, and AI related apps. It is also not related to small scale at home programs like running a home bakery enterprise.

Window future in next 10 years? Can’t say too much. UWP’s position is not so strong because it is new. Microsoft’s awareness regarding the failure in mobile apps makes it stay and experiment in the market. PCs are not as lively as mobiles nowadays. Yes, the collaboration with Xbox is growing at a good speed. With other devices also, new updates and support system are in the development phase.

Microsoft believes in thinking for future rather than sustaining current trends. Like Apple’s iPad, UWP is slow but remaining steady will make it win the race.

Hi, what do you feel about the article, please let us know. We would be Happy to hear something from you.