Windows Phone 8.1 Features/Changes

[trooper11 63]

I thought I would post this current list of features/changes that have been leaked so far from the early 8.1 SDK developers have been given:

 

http://www.wpcentral.com/developers-leak-new-features-windows-phone-81-sdk

 

Its a rather long list and since none of it is confirmed, things could change.  It's also important to note that not everything that is expected to be in the update is present in the sdk at all, so there will be more rolled out.

 

I think this is some important info for the developers here that are working on the WP8 app and the Win 8 app. Here is a few features that could have an impact on what you guys can do with MB on these platforms:

 

-Audio/video transcoding, Hardware accelerated

-Apps can capture audio/video from themselves

-Stereoscopic 3d support

-PlayTo support

-No more XAP, instead APPX

-mirror Windows Phone screens to TVs and/or monitors

 

-JavaScript and HTML support to allow for cross development between WP and Win 8

-Single sign-in for apps (like on Windows 8) with Microsoft Account; sign in will persist across devices + apps with permissions prompt

 

So this could allow for a single app to be developed for MB3 that works across WP and Windows.  I'm not sure if that is something you guys might want to do, but its a nice improvement in flexibility. 

Edited February 12, 2014 by trooper11

[Beardyname 196]

Honestly i hope they don't since both do well on the platform they are designed for!

[Beardyname 196]

yeah i have read about these features to, can't wait for the next wp update! (march or so if i remember correctly)

[trooper11 63]

I wonder if this might lead to the Win 8 MB3 app or the WP8 MB3 app being available on either platform.

 

Plus, if the X1 is part of this convergence, one of these apps might show up there in some form.

[Starkadius 219]

"Bringing one Windows to Developers"

 

Google Calendar Support (multiple calendars)

 

IE11 Mobile supports uploading files directly from the browser, including featuring a file picker

 

 

Looks like HID support is being added for keyboads/mice or any USB HID device as well

Edited February 14, 2014 by Starkadius

[Luke 37994]

Unification of sdk's is a good thing, but they really ought to stop with the single presentation for every device philosophy. The market has rejected that pretty loud and clear.

[gcoupe 63]

The market may have rejected it, but actually, I quite like it. Particularly if the platform optimises what's available in terms of input devices. So, on my Desktop, with no touch hardware, I use keyboard mouse. On my tablet and phone I use touch. Yet the underlying coding platform and user interface semantics across all the devices are very closely related, if not the same. That similarity, I would have thought, would please both coders (code once, run everywhere [where have I heard that before]) and users. However, as you say, we are told that the market has rejected it. From where I'm standing, the market hasn't got a clue.

[Luke 37994]

Taking a user interface designed for a certain form factor and forcing it onto another is not a good idea. I think MS took the idea too literally. Rather than focusing on making it feel the same, they set out to make it exactly the same, and in my opinion that was a big mistake. Sharing of technology and development libraries is a separate topic, and yes, that's always a very good thing.

[Starkadius 219]

I am curious, what is wrong with the interface having the same look? I will be open minded about what you think.

 

One of the new changes in the upcoming Windows 8.1 Update 1 (not windows phone but related since ultimately it will all be one) is that it will detect if you are using a mouse/keyboard and automatically boot to desktop on startup. Also if you are running a modern app you will have contextual menus akin to what we already see on the desktop which will make it mouse friendly. The taskbar will also now appear on the start screen and the apps will dock there as well. Microsoft is making the modern app interface more desktop user friendly with upcoming updates. If Windows detects that you are using a tablet then the contextual menus for example wont appear. They are making Windows more dynamic for their users whether you are a productive desktop user or just a casual user who wants to use their device for media consumption, the choice is there for both instances.

 

An advantage I see with having a universal interface across all your devices is that you don't need to adjust your thought process going from device to device. "Where is option A on this device? Oh there it is!". Familiarity allows users to navigate their devices more efficiently and quickly without a wasted moment. Workflow goes uninterrupted and creativity unhindered. Somebody else other than Microsoft that has this idea to unify the interfaces and making it dynamic is Ubuntu which wants to have their OS on phones/tablets/desktops etc.

 

Growing pains and many more options available today is the reason the market in general has rejected the new modern interface. Many years ago everyone was hating Windows XP calling it the Fisher-Price of Windows, "Windows 2000 is better etc". When Windows 95 came out people were complaining about the start menu as well. Every new version of Windows always has a growing pains period and considering the majority of users aren't really "productive" on their computers they now have other devices to fit their limited needs such as iOS and Android so they avoid the growing pains period altogether or stay with Windows 7. Some users that do have productive needs but refuse to give the new interface a chance avoid it by going to Linux or even MacOS. Just recently Chrome has added VM support for running Windows applications so we have a new contender in the productivity OS area as well. Eventually I imagine android and iOS will gain more productivity software support as well.

 

Personally, I have no allegiance to Microsoft, Apple, Google or whoever. Windows simply offers specific features that fit my needs which I know may not be the same for everyone else and that's why I continue to use it. I view Windows as a sort of jack of all trades (gaming, media and productivity). What makes today in technology unlike what it was 10 years ago is that we now have more options to choose from and that's a good thing for us the consumers in the end.

 

I do have allegiance to MediaBrowser though

Edited February 15, 2014 by Starkadius

[trooper11 63]

I don't think MS is touting this as pushing the exact same UI across different devices.

 

WP OS and Win 8 Metro share many things behind the scenes, but they are not the exact same UI.  They know that each form factor and input method requires tweaking the UI to suit it. 

 

The whole universal app thing is not saying that a developer must create an app that works exactly the same on say Win 8 and WP.  The idea is that the stuff behind the scenes, the code that makes each work, will be the same.  Then the developer adjusts the UI as needed. It will be up to the developer to make sure their UI works comfortably.  What MS is doing is just making it easier for that developer to jump from one device to another.

[Starkadius 219]

 Microsoft's devices head: We won't have three Windows versions in the future

 

We have the Windows Phone OS.  We have Windows RT and we have full Windows.  We're not going to have three.  We do think there's a world where there is a more mobile operating system that doesn't have the risks to battery life, or the risks to security.  But, it also comes at the cost of flexibility.  So we believe in that vision and that direction and we're continuing down that path. 

 

In all likelihood it might mean that RT and Windows Phone will merge so we will have two versions of Windows; Pro and RT.

 

Source: neowin

[trooper11 63]

Oh yeah, RT and WP will be merging into one product.  It makes the most sense too.  The tablet os and phone os share so much in terms of form factor, input methods, etc. 

[Starkadius 219]

Windows 8 UX designer on Metro: "It is the antithesis of a power user"

 

Very interesting read. Points of interest that I found:

 

 

• Miller continued on to explain that the design team split users into two groups: content creators and content consumers (Desktop / Metro)
• It was explained that there will be some time before the focus turns to power users, however once the focus returns that Microsoft would be able to implement the power user features that it wasn't able to before. Using Miller's own example: one feature we are able to predict for the next major iteration of Windows will be multiple desktops.

 

The entire article is worth a read if you want to understand how and why Windows 8 came about with its controversial interface.

[trooper11 63]

Here is a little more info on the Cortana voice assistant:

 

http://www.wpcentral.com/cortana-privacy-prioritized-notebook

 

This is an even bigger deal because MS plans to migrate this service to Windows and the X1.  This could be a great addition to the X1 for media usage, especially once there is a proper MB3 app.  Some of the behavior they talk about reminds me of chef's MB3 Kinect plugin.

[Starkadius 219]

"Windows Phone 8.1? With the size of these updates, it’s more like Windows Phone 9"

 

 

This is going to help. As a mobile developer who as been developing with .NET since the early days of the framework, I have little interested in creating WP apps. My efforts are better spent focusing on Ios and Android. Being able to write one Metro style app and deploy across various device (phones, tablets, set top boxes, and PCs) with minimal re-work is going to be a huge plus.

By doing this, Microsoft can harness the vast number of .NET developers out there. Sounds like they are moving in the right direction.

 

I have been under the impression that everyone was getting on the Microsoft-hate wagon since that seems to be the trend nowadays. I would think that no matter what Microsoft does, people will hate it simply because its Microsoft. So I am very surprised that overall the comments seem to be positive on the new updates and finally looking good for Windows Phone. I am very excited for these new features especially Cortana which apparently we will be able to name whatever we want.

 

Source

[Luke 37994]

I am saying this objectively because I personally have no hatred towards them, but while I don't think there is a hate with consumers there definitely is with developers. They basically shunned the open source movement for 15 years, which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, then finally a few years ago they start banging the drum saying the .net framework is open source, except it's not really because they don't accept pull requests so it's just read-only. Then they are the most expensive platform to developer for, e.g. development tools are expensive and windows apps require more computing power thus more expensive for the end user. The difference 10 years ago was that MS was the only game in town and developers had no choice but to go along with it all. Now they can just walk away and thrive on other platforms, so if you're an MS fan you have to be a little worried about that.

[ScottIsAFool 517]

e.g. development tools are expensive

Try developing for a mac then

[Starkadius 219]

Note to Luke: Please don't waste your valuable time reading my lengthy post, I wont be offended. I don't want to steal the time you could be using on making MediaBrowser more awesome than it already is. If you do happen to have a little time to spare then by all means continue. Also my intention is not to offend anyone but just stir some intelligent and civil (for the most part ) discourse. I am a technology enthusiast that enjoy all things tech, I don't discriminate.

 

 

For reference keep in mind I am only using Android as a placeholder for opensource, it can really be anything else as long as its open source.

 

I agree with most of your points, like I said in one of my previous posts;

 

"What makes today in technology unlike what it was 10 years ago is that we now have more options to choose from and that's a good thing for us the consumers in the end."

 

The only part I don't agree entirely on is that only MS fans should be worried (I am not a Microsoft fan btw as i also said before), it is the consumers and developers who should be worried if the market loses Microsoft. We need Microsoft to survive just like we need Apple and Google. Competition breeds innovation and these corporations existing keep one another in check so it is like a ping pong game, developers and consumers will keep bouncing around among the different choices. Nobody seems to stay in one platform indefinitely anymore because there are always newer and better features being made available on competing platforms.

 

Why would this be bad for developers? According to these recent Mobile Phone App Store statistics of 2013, Windows Phone seems to have more earning potential for developers than Android but iOS is still the best choice for revenue. Android has nearly 80% of the world's market share while iOS has 15% and Windows Phone has a "measly" 3.6% market share. If you look at the app store statistics, the 80% of the world's mobile market share which is Android spent $1,200,000,000 in apps compared to $950,000,000 that was spent by the "measly" 3.6% Windows Phone users.

 

• 29 billion android app downloads earned $1.2 billion
• 4.1 billion WP app downloads earned $0.95 billion

 

That is a huge earnings contrast which maybe I am wrong but is telling us that basically Windows Phone and iOS are the choices likely to allow developers to earn a living if they don't already have some full time job. This is telling us that Android users simply don't want to pay for apps as much as other competing OSes. Open source software is a double edged sword. Its greatest asset (openness) is its own Achilles heel. It is suppose to be "free" for the most part and thus everyone continues to expect it to be free forever and nobody gets paid for anything. Opensource software in the case of Android is beneficial to everyone except the developers. Android users want to download the games and apps for free or they install cyanogenmod because who doesn't like free stuff? Google is the clear winner, the users are the products because Google data-mines them to try to show them as many ads as possible (not gonna deny this, Microsoft does this too now with Skype on desktop. Those bastards!). Who else benefits from Android? Samsung and all the OEMs that don't have to pay for Android OS to be installed on their army of phones and tablets. The android market has become so saturated with apps and fragmented tablets/phones that are forked it has become increasingly difficult as a developer to make money off it. Is it impossible to make money on Android? No, but it is a drop in a sea of apps.

 

 

I rambled so much I don't even remember what point I was trying to make. I guess I am saying that if you create apps purely as a hobby and don't expect to be compensated for your work then opensource is the way to go. From a consumer standpoint I embrace opensource (its cheaper!) but as a developer that needs to eat I would use it only to see what awesome things I could come up with since it is not so restrictive as closed garden OSes. Opensource has the advantage of allowing developers to push their limits to keep making things better. Opensource allows software to flourish unlike close garden OSes so yeah that definitely is attractive to developers, I agree with this sentiment 100%.

 

Edited February 23, 2014 by Starkadius

[Luke 37994]

Honestly my statement was meant to be objective because i have no hard feelings myself with MS. I am just calling it like I see it around the software industry. Open source and small start-ups is where a lot of the innovation is taking place nowadays, except very little of it is taking place on microsoft platforms. To me that's the biggest challenge facing MS in the coming years. How do you win back the people you've turned away because just building a quality platform isn't enough. There has to be some kind of cultural change. Most people feel like windows phone is already a quality platform, but that still hasn't translated into developers wanting to build apps for it.

[trooper11 63]

All MS can do is keep pushing forward aggressively to improve their platforms for customers and developers.

 

I think we can all see MS has started to turn things around in both of those regards.  They are reaching out to developers and making changes across their platforms in reaction to user and developer feedback.  That has resulted in positive feedback from both groups.

 

That's not to say they can't and shouldn't continue to improve, but it does show that MS can turn it around.  The new teams formed under the new CEO must work together instead of against each other. 

 

As Luke said though, there is a lot of built up animosity that has to be torn down.  That will not happen overnight, but it will happen if the above continues.  Developers are starting to come around and I think there is a positive outlook ahead.  At some point, the slow pace will become much faster, MS just needs to get over the 'hump' in winning back that solid developer support.

[Starkadius 219]

I can certainly understand that animosity. Honestly the only reason I ever got into Windows Phone is not because of Microsoft or the OS itself (although that might have a tiny bit to do with it) it is because of Nokia. The quality and dedication that Nokia has brought to Windows Phone is what has allowed the OS to gain any momentum not Microsoft. Nokia has always been my favorite brand when it came to phones and I would even use a Nokia phone if it had android on it which they are going to be releasing 3 versions of apparently. If anything I would use it as a secondary phone because the news I am reading about on Windows Phone 8.1 has reinvigorated my enthusiasm to continue using Windows Phone. 

 

The problem with Microsoft which is my biggest issue with them is that they are so slow at implementing fixes/updates or new features. They have spread themselves thin trying to do Xbox, Surface, Windows Phone, Windows OS, Office Suite, Skype, Azure Cloud Platform, Lync, Windows Server, Visual Studio and a bunch more. So when any decision is made on a product it has to go through so much red tape before anything is ever done and by the time "Feature A" is implemented a competitor has already done it. They are too big for their own good.

 

Unfortunately (or maybe not?) Microsoft has purchased the hardware division of the Nokia phones including their engineers and they will remain in Finland so who knows maybe Microsoft will learn a thing or two from Nokia and we might end up seeing a Surface Phone that will be of Nokia engineering in disguise. Maybe the culture of Nokia that has brought on whatever success WP has received will transfer over to the Microsoft divisions. Also lets not forget Steve Ballmer is out! He loved the company but at the same time he was a business man unlike Bill Gates. A business man does not really understand the culture of the tech world and is out of touch. The new CEO though Satya Nadella is technology centered first with a background in business so we have to just wait and see what changes if any Microsoft will go through in the coming years. Hopefully for the better.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Starkadius

[Starkadius 219]

I think Microsoft has been reading this thread.

 

 

• Windows 8 originally focused on pushing touch screen as a primary method of control. But people used to the typical mouse and keyboard control were frustrated with the different experience. Microsoft is hoping to address that. 
• The update includes a new mouse user interface, including the use of right click for Start and to close apps. Microsoft is also adding search, power, and settings icons on the Start screen. It will also be easier to launch and switch between apps through the task bar.
• Microsoft is loosening the hardware restrictions to allow manufacturers to create less expensive hardware, allowing them to make more affordable Windows 8 devices. The new lower limit of 1GB of ram and 16GB of storage will allow for a new wave of devices

 

That was fast. They still need to convince the people that have left to other OSes to return. Their marketing is not so great I'm afraid.

 

Source

[Luke 37994]

Yea the less expensive hardware is big. That's really important. Nowadays people want things cheap and accessible more so than they want high end. It doesn't matter who you are, you can't join a tablet market three years late with a device that is priced higher than everyone else and expect to succeed. Amazon got it right, they were also late but undercut everyone and look what happened. Same thing with the xbox. It doesn't matter what extra features you have you can't come in priced $100 higher and think you're going to outsell the competition. The ps3 may have been able to accomplish that but those were different times. To many people it's that bottom line that is all that matters. We see it ourselves. We can claim all the features we want over Plex, but if we don't win the cpu utilization battle @@Tikuf we're not going to beat them. Plain and simple.

 

Look at what google did to abobe recently: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/google-plans-to-dump-adobe-css-tech-to-make-blink-fast-not-rich/

They rejected a new css feature that many people feel would add value. And the reason is simple. More efficient software = cheaper hardware = more devices you can run on = every piece of electronics will have chrome on it (what google wants anyway). And that's basically why I'm trying to make MBS more efficient with each release.

[trooper11 63]

Look at what google did to abobe recently: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/google-plans-to-dump-adobe-css-tech-to-make-blink-fast-not-rich/

They rejected a new css feature that many people feel would add value. And the reason is simple. More efficient software = cheaper hardware = more devices you can run on = every piece of electronics will have chrome on it (what google wants anyway). And that's basically why I'm trying to make MBS more efficient with each release.

 

 

There is a balance point though.  If you throw away too many useful features in order to reach whatever efficiency goal you have, users may flock to a competitor that does. 

 

In the race to the bottom, its important to not actually hit the bottom

[Starkadius 219]

Look at what google did to abobe recently: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/google-plans-to-dump-adobe-css-tech-to-make-blink-fast-not-rich/

They rejected a new css feature that many people feel would add value. And the reason is simple. More efficient software = cheaper hardware = more devices you can run on = every piece of electronics will have chrome on it (what google wants anyway). And that's basically why I'm trying to make MBS more efficient with each release.

 

Yeah but by stripping away features that may add value, it is stripping away any freedom for potential creativity that the developer/designer has in mind to implement. This reminds me Microsoft's Modern UI where less is more, less elements to tax processing power. Which I think puts many people off who actually want something visually appealing.

 

You're right though the bottom line is what matters but it shouldn't be all that matters. The thing about  MediaBrowser is that it stemmed from Media Center which did not cater to the average joe, it catered to enthusiasts that seek the best image and audio quality in media entertainment. Those are the core group that MediaBrowser was meant for. Of course a small group cannot sustain MediaBrowser development forever so you need to cater to the average joe and that is where streaming is basically good enough for them. Thus I see the cpu utilization battle you mentioned is of the utmost importance, you reach a bigger audience which is absolutely necessary.

 

The thing to remember though is to not become Microsoft or Google(example you used) along the way. What I mean by that is when Windows 8 was released for example they didn't cater to the content creators that use the desktop. They wanted to reach a bigger audience and made the modern start screen. They sidelined the very group of users that still used their OS even as a swarm of tablets were entering the market. The content creators (enthusiasts) were put off by it and well either decided to stick to Windows 7 or moved on to something else.

 

you can't join a tablet market three years late with a device that is priced higher than everyone else and expect to succeed

 

Yup I know. The Surface Pro was priced at ultrabook levels, it is actually meant to compete with the Macbook Air(similar specs) and not the iPad or other Android tablets. The thing is though, most people don't know that and don't really care. Average joe though just sees a tablet that usually can be had for $150 to $600 on average, they don't know the difference in specs. The Surface Pro is really meant for content creators than for content consumers but that's where the Surface RT comes in and unfortunately in my opinion is a terrible move by Microsoft which I am sure most can agree with. Also I believe they priced it high as to not upset their OEM partners with comparable Win tablets by undercutting them.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Starkadius