Starting Windows 8.1 Store App - Considerations with Windows 10?

Question

I have a Windows Phone 7.5 app and I'm just about to start creating a desktop version as a Windows 8.1 universal app from scratch, and eventually a phone version.

Now that I'm starting to see some info on Windows 10 universal apps, I think I'll skip a WP8.1 version and wait for 10. However I still want to start work on my Windows 8.1 desktop version.

From what I gather, it would be best to create a standard 8.1 store app, rather than a universal one, since it will fit between into the new windows 10 universal app style?

Answer 1

Depending on how long you expect to take building your app you might want to consider downloading the recently released Windows 10 developer tools and Visual Studio 2015 preview. You can get started on a Windows 10 version and then update it as required when the final SDK and OS are released. Of course there are caveats when working with pre-release software.

You make an interesting point about creating a Windows Store app rather than a Universal one. In Windows 10 you can make a universal app with a single project, which would make it easier to port a single-project Windows Store app (vs. a Universal app with three projects). But you can also use the three projects method when targeting Windows 10. And note that in a Windows Store 8.1 app you can't easily provide for your phone version as you would not have access to the new adaptive UI features available for Windows 10 apps.

I would just start on a Windows 10 version and forget about 8.1 (in fact I am planning on doing just that myself with an existing WP7.5 app). Whatever you choose to do you should be able to re-use most of your code anyway. I don't think it would make a huge difference which option you go with.

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I'm a self-taught noob amateur. Please take this into account when responding to my posts or when taking advice from me.

Answer 2

It really mainly comes down to the release time frame and the targeted user base. There still are a lot of users who have not even upgraded to 8.1 on their PC because they never use the store and the update isn't delivered through Windows Update.

On the phone side we have seen that it can take several months before the majority of devices is on the newest version. Of course the 7.5 version of your App will still be available for users of 8.0 and 8.1 though.

The 8.1 Store App version should be a lot closer to what you see in Windows 10 but you'll likely do a pretty major reworking of your UI to make it viable across all platforms when you move from 8.1 to 10.

As for code reuse - business logic can be reused from 7.5. UI pretty much can't and most system calls are different as well. 8.0 already introduced some shared APIs with big windows (e.g. file access).

All in all I see no really clear cut way. If you believe you will take until after summer anyway jumping to 10 directly might be a viable approach.