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BELOWMicrosoft’s Build announcements caused an outpouring of geek love
111 Jon Honeyball OpiniononWindows,Appleand everythinginbetween–p110 Davey Winder Keepingsmallbusinesses safesince1997–p118 Steve Cassidy Thewidervisiononcloud andinfrastructure–p120 Paul Ockenden Uniqueinsightintomobile andwirelesstech–p113 Eileen Brown Eventhetech-savvycanhave theirwebsiteshacked–p116
Let’s take the cross-compilation issue first. This sort of recompilation to a different OS has been tried many times before and has never worked well. Think back to the days of OS/2, and its attempt to run native Windows code. Didn’t work then, doesn’t work now. Or rather, it works fine in a few carefully crafted demo applications – but the devil is always in the detail. The claim coming from Microsoft is suitably bullish. If you’re an iOS or Android developer, then writing an application for Windows (or Windows Phone) is currently a rewrite job, and hence a lot of work. These technologies will give you a leg up by dramatically reducing the work required to get something going, almost down to nothing.
But let’s look at the numbers. The first rule of retargeted code is that it’s never as simple as it seems. For starters, you have to debug and support another platform, which you’ll be doing through a smoke-and- mirrors layer provided by Microsoft. This layer won’t be perfect, and you’ll quite quickly end up working around multiple issues. Yes, you have a product up and running, but at what real cost? And is it worth it when, in the case of Android apps running on Windows Phone, we’re talking 3% of market share? If you’re already a successful app vendor on Android, why would you take on this additional headache for such a small sales uplift, even if it is simpler than doing a ground-up rewrite? The advantage of a ground-up rewrite is of course that it’s native to the target platform, and so can take full unfettered and unfiltered advantage of its services.
Now let’s look at the iOS issue. First of all, Microsoft doesn’t control the underlying OS, and has no meaningful access to its codebase. We’re on iOS 8.3 today with 8.4 in beta, and at the forthcoming Worldwide Developers’ Conference we’ll likely see early versions of iOS 9. Now let’s add to the pot Apple’s exceptional ability to persuade its users to move up quickly to the latest version of its OS. Back in February Apple announced that iOS 8 was running on 73% of all iOS devices, and that was only months after its arrival. It’s clear that, unlike Windows users, iOS users move and move rapidly, and hence will move to iOS 9 just as fast.
Let’s also not forget the lock that Apple has over its developer community. Want your app to stay in the Apple App Store? Then keep up with the latest technologies and standards. If you’re not 64-bit, you’re about to become history. Once again, Apple has huge power over its developers, and has proven to be ruthless in getting apps optimised for iOS 8. This ruthlessness is sure to continue with iOS 9. So we have an application environment that’s moving fast and isn’t under Microsoft’s control; an OS environment that’s moving just as fast; and an Apple willing to do whatever it can to protect that. It certainly won’t let its developers lag behind the pack just to keep their older codebases alive, in order to fit in with wherever Microsoft has got to by that point in time.
Finally, let’s not ignore the implications of all this for battery
life. What will happen to any real application running on a Windows phone or tablet when it’s ported across using these technologies? Battery life is everything, and even the smallest of slips can and will decimate the battery life for your users. No, the problem with all of this stuff is that it’s “geek porn”, as the Americans like to call it. It’s hugely interesting to developers because they love talking dirty, but the businesspeople backing those developers will be wary, while end users simply won’t care.
Here’s their choice: there’s a bunch of Android apps you want to use, so you can either buy that new Samsung/ Nexus/HTC today and have them run just fine, or you can buy a Windows Phone and have those same apps work to some degree, with unknown and untested consequences on critical items such as battery life. That was an easy decision wasn’t it? Or, if you’re
thinking of buying an iPhone or iPad, and have a bunch of iOS apps you want to use: you can either buy that new iDevice today and have the apps work just fine, or you can buy a Windows tablet and have those apps turn up sometime in the future, or not, when they might run well, or not. Well, that was another easy decision...
The really startling aspect of this technology is that it’s Microsoft doing what it thinks it does best, creating wizardry for developers.
Technical solutions that make bloggers drool. Unfortunately, think
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ABOVEThe ability to run Android and iOS code on Windows is truly impressive – but will developers jump?
BELOWMicrosoft has failedtogetdevelopers toengagewiththe Moderninterface at all thi or iOS you iDe app can and som not wel ano of it’ thi wiz