We have already heard the rumours of another reboot for Microsoft’s Mobile OS. Various reports have confirmed that Microsoft is testing a mobile device with new mobile experience having full Windows 10 OS for Mobiles with scaled UX with C Shell. Here are the 4 pieces for the Puzzle that Microsoft have been in since the launch of Windows Phone 7.
The APP GAP
Microsoft had purchased Xamarin back in February 24, 2016. With Xamarin you can build and design a mobile app using it’s cross-platform development software which simplifies mobile application creation. What Microsoft needs to do is that they have to bring iOS and Android developers to build their apps on the Xamarin and then with a single project in Visual Studio developers can create a Native Windows UWP app as well from it.
Once developers begins developing their apps on Xamarin they can easily create native Android, iOS, and Windows apps by using existing skills, teams, and code. This is because Xamarin apps will use the native UIs on every platform for enabling the best possible experiences. In this way Microsoft will be able to solve their biggest problem of App gap due to which consumers avoid using Microsoft Windows platform and their hardware.
UI Scaling of UWP apps
Other thing that Microsoft needs to do is that they have to develop C Shell and universal Windows platform apps in such a way that they can be run on all the Windows 10 devices without the need of specifically designing the interface for different category of hardware like it is now (PCs,Phone,Hub,XBox).
With this users will be able to run their UWP apps on any screen for the same device like projecting their device , using continuum mode on phones, tablet mode for PCs with a single package to be downloaded from Windows store. Recently we have seen the video leak of C Shell running on Windows 10 mobile which will allow the same PC interface of start and other windows core functionality on phone.
Win32 Support
But bringing the apps on Windows 10 store for phones will not be enough for users to buy a Windows phone because the apps are already available on iOS and Android. So to attract more consumers Microsoft must provide them with something more than what others smartphones are offering now. They have to provide Win32 apps (that are not on store chrome, Photoshop etc.) support on windows phone. Win32 app are the older apps run that are running on PCs from earlier versions of Windows.
Microsoft has already shown us that they are bringing Win32 apps through emulation on ARM based hardware (smartphone, tablet). If users are getting a smartphone that is capable of doing everything a PC can like running photoshop, full office experience or any other heavy usage x86 apps etc. they would definitely would love to have such a device.
Brilliantly Optimized Hardware
The last piece of the puzzle is an awesome hardware that is aligned with the software in terms of performance, battery life, productivity. Take an example of iPhone it has some specifications that can be considered below par when compared to the Android flagship but iOS is optimized with the hardware in such a way that the individual specifications of the device performs better as a collective process.
But for this to happen all the elements of Windows ecosystem must matured enough to be free from unwanted bugs. As we are seeing more stability of Windows 10 with each update and more stable UWP apps present on the windows store, I can say we are just a couple of updates away from attaining this maturity.
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