In the MWC 2015, held recently in Barcelona, Microsoft revealed their plans that they intend to roll out with Windows 10 app platform. The spokesperson for the event declared that Windows 10 will enable app developers to publish their apps as Web Apps. through the Windows Store.
This move has been commonly anticipated as a save face for Microsoft development company to make up for the limitations it has self-imposed upon its own store by limiting 3rd party apps, thereby losing out on providing a wide array of apps that other app stores have monetized greatly upon.
Source: www.zdenet.com/
The Windows story so far
Microsoft has always faced strong obstacles in terms of applications and its own Store.
Android and Apple market has dominated the major share of the pie on the grounds of total number of apps that have been published on their stores.
This has always been a hindrance that Microsoft has been looking to overcome, for quite some time now.
With this latest Web App stint they are hoping to turn the tables in their favor. As a reinforcement to their plans they have also made provisions for these Web Apps to function outside their ‘vanilla browser set up that usually contains the apps as of date.
Any successful web app that has been installed via the Windows Store will have special permissions such as access Windows Notifications, Full Screen mode access, and Cortana integration, that other apps would lack access to thereby monopolizing over the Web App Windows Store products.
Despite the mixed bag of emotions hovering over millions of Smart phone users there are pros and cons to this move, and it is important to weigh in the balance to see if it indeed can help users as well as MS to assert their dominance on the pie.
Source: www.saharawebsolutions.com/
Pros
- Web Apps that are hosted on the Store will enable web developers to easily convert elements of their web sites into apps that are already made available for download from the store, while simultaneously hosting the same remotely on their own web infrastructure.
- The new apps will have exclusive access to various features like notifications, Cortana, camera, etc.
- Providing a Store for Web Apps allows more participation from web app developers who no don’t have to create apps from the scratch in order to cater to the mobile market.
Cons</3>
- As of now browser-based apps run under extreme limitations with access provided only to the core operating System, by Microsoft.
- There are recurring issues of web-layering on the internet infrastructure making it a volatile platform. Especially since, Microsoft has announced that the Web Apps will support Java– which is infamous for being highly insecure
Conclusion
With as much information that is around this latest development one can only wait and watch the turn of events. Microsoft however is quite optimistic about the prospect of this transition.
They are hoping that letting web apps be hosted directly through their Store would encourage and lure more and more developers to create apps for Windows 10 platform that includes an array of products that will see the light of day in the near future.