Will *current* app catalog be available across phone, tablet and PC?

[Onager1286]

Some of my family have Windows Phones, and one of my big frustrations when helping them is that the app stores on their phones and their Surfaces are different. When Windows 10 was announced, it was said that there would be one store. Initially I thought this meant that, finally, the confusion resulting from two sets of apps will be gone. As things have progressed with the technical previews, I'm not so sure anymore.

For instance, let's say that next year you're deciding between a 7 and 8 inch Windows 10 tablet. It's Windows 10 no matter what you get, so it's just a matter of a little extra screen real estate, right? Wrong, at least that's how it seems right now. That 7 inch tablet is going to get the mobile/phone SKU, which will run phone apps, while the 8 inch will run the desktop SKU, which will still - presumably - not run phone apps.

In a perfect world, all of the apps in either store would be universal apps, and there would be no issue. Unfortunately, almost the entire catalog of apps available at the time of the Windows 10 launch will NOT be universal, so you're going to get small tablets that both claim to be Windows 10, but with different sets of apps available to them. That's a problem.

Thoughts?

 

[ven07]

The apps developed by MS will most likely be "universal", but as for the rest... Well it's up to the developers and we should keep in mind that some devs made their apps a while back and stopped looking at it, so the chance of them coming back and updating their code is... "meh"

Some might; others won't

 

[Praxius]

Indeed. From day one when MS described Universal Apps, it was clear that Universal Apps would only apply to new apps developers make that support all platforms.

Which means any existing apps will not be universal unless the developers update them to be universal.

What will most likely occur is that when you decide to download a "legacy" app (not sure what else to call them) the store will either allow you to download the app as it is designed for you specific system, or you will have a message on the app's page saying that this app is not supported by your device.

This would be similar to trying to download most apps in the WP Store from a 7.8 device today.... Or trying to get a specific game that doesn't support your 512mb phone.

At the same time, if the universal apps concept works as intended, many new and existing developers will be enticed into updating their apps in order to reach a much larger audience. At present, many devs make their app for one platform and can't be bothered to make it again for another. They either pick and choose which one they think their app would be best suited for or they pick which system would grab them the most attention.

With the UA concept, they can just sit down once to create their app for PC's, Tablets, Mobiles, XBox and Laptops and only focusing on updating/patching one app instead of several.

Time will tell, but the first year will probably see a bit of a slow transition.

But currently, a dev has to determine if they want to make their app for Windows PC 8/8.1, Windows RT, Windows Phone 8/8.1 and if they pick Windows Phone 8/8.1, do they try and optimize for 512mb devices or try and focus just on the 1gb + folks.... Or do they try and release an app for each.

..... Oh and let's not forget that just because Universal Apps are coming, that doesn't mean all future apps will be universal. Some developers may choose to make their app only for one type of device and there is no obligation for them to make it universal.

 

[yihong kang]

I expect larger devices running full windows 10 can run everything (including older wp and windows apps), but smaller devices running win10 mobile can only run old wp apps + universal apps.