Either way, the reason I mention about you evidently being new here is your pie-in-the-sky utopian posts. Yes, your views are logical. They make perfect sense. But we've been saying essentially what you're saying for several years. It's not turning out the way it should, the way that logic would dictate. Hence the skepticism.
Pie in the sky about what? I don't believe in surface phone, in windows in arm on a phone. I only believe in project Andromeda because I've seen the code. I only believe new features are coming to win10m, because MSFT explicitly said so.
I only believe UWP will grow because it has, and it has to commercially. I think current phones will be supported, but only up early next years update at most, and mostly because there are no new phones yet (and not in an intensive way, just the enterprise features, the new keyboard, and app based updates as desktop trickledown like timeline and files on demand)
I'm not really sure what's pie in the sky about my views. To me, they seem very grounded, and similar to historical precedent. I do see a lot of utopian thinking around here, around "ultimate ultramobile" whatever that is.
And that's not to say that what you predict will not come to pass. It might. Shoot at the target blindfolded enough times, and you'll eventually hit it. But it's to the place where we'll need to see to believe.
UWP is two years old. Its the biggest change to the windows platform, literally ever. It will take a lot of time, and a lot of effort on MSFTs part, to make it work. But for them, it has to. If it fails, developers will give up on the platform, and move to fushia, or osx or Linux. If their one OS, UWP play doesn't work, and their holographic play doesn't work, they will re-entrench as a cloud company and end up like IBM. For a corporation that kind of defeat cannot be considered an option until its forced on you.
UWP has to be seen, internally to MSFT as a "last stand", as with the whole one OS vision. Do or die. Bullish.
It's true that Android users are cheapskates. Yet developing for Android can be profitable due to the sheer numbers.
Its profitable, due to sheer numbers, if you get the sheer numbers. Which is why its basically top ten get paid, the rest get peanuts. A google, or speaking to developers will show this. Indie android developers that don't get break through success, don't get a liveable income, its pretty low.
I don't know where the conclusions about W10M users you state were reached, but Windows phone users are also notoriously stingy.
Well two things. One was talking to developers online who develop for both platforms. They generally (not all but most) seem to think that win10m is surprisingly more profitable for indie developers. Of course those that haven't coded for win10m were doubtful, like you are, but those that coded for both seemed to have a consensus more or less.
Another was a study into the comparative average monthly earnings of android, ios, and windows app developers, where win10m was slightly higher than the other two. Of course, this reflects "the average developer" and not high earning top tier developers. Those top teir developers earn considerably more, but the average developers, earn less, according to the study. Obviously one doesn't save such links, in preparation for random internet debates, but in the comments there were also developers mostly nodding in agreement.
I think there's a number of factors here. Win10m users have less app selection. In some cases they have to pay to get what they want. You can see that even more in a place like blackberry world - almost everything is paid because there are no alternatives. Win10m isn't quite that bad, but in some cases, its paid software, or nothing of any worth. Games might be an example. They are some great freemium games. But if you are an intensive gamer, on win10m, you can't really get away with not spending some money on some of those quality titles, like for example, the go series, or leo's fortune, or forza motorsport.
Also, they tend to be either prosumer windows users (who are used to spending money for apps), or business users (who are also used to spending money for tools). It's generally a slightly less "average" consumer based platform. More prosumer and enterprise. Logically it stands to reason, they would be more likely to pay for software IMO, given the types of people that use the platform, and the types of software available.
Lastly, in terms of profits for developers, there is less competition. There are loads of developers for android, and ios. It's easier to make money as a "little guy" in an area where their is less stiff competition. Also why TCL and Wharton brooks, coship etc have invested in windows phones. Commerical commonsense.
All this adds up to more time to spend on consumer wishes, for indie devs. Take the mi band app on win10m. I spoke to the two person team they have writing the apps, and they are continually working on new features, and reassured me what I wanted was on their list. Any time I've emailed an android or ios developer, they basically don't care what I want, and don't seem to have as much interest in adding new features.
Combine that with the negligible user base, and there is almost no chance of it being profitable.
ComScore measured last years installed userbase of win10m at 2.7% in the US. It might be slightly smaller now, than in 2016, but it's vastly different from their marketshare that year (the quarterly sales of new phones). People often conflate these two numbers not really understanding the stats - userbase, and marketshare but they are not the same thing at all. Userbase is the total number of people with the OS on their phones. Marketshare is how many new phones sold that quarter (which is tiny compared to the total number of users).
Neither net stats, nor martketshare accurately measure userbase. Userbase is actually quite a tricky thing to measure. Which is why comScore is really the only reliable game in town. According to them, the userbase is much higher than is generally though my mobile enthusiast, of course partly due to this misunderstanding of market stats.
2.5% of at least US folk, with a prosumer and enterprise leaning, and a sparser selection of apps, and its not too hard to see why this is ideal for indie developers. That's not a bad userbase, especially for an area fewer developers are fighting for attention. Certainly nowhere near as good profit wise for AAA, top ten, rockstar app writers, compared to either android or ios, but that's not most developers.
Windows desktop users still don't use the Store in any meaningful numbers. However, Windows 10 S might change that. We'll see!
Meaningful? IDK, my informal survey on here estimated around 1/3. Admitedly this is a fan site, it was informal, so the number is probably higher, and adoption of the store is low, but I am not positive that its a _meaningless_ level of use. Indeed, I think many app devs convert win32's, or write non-scaling apps, because some desktop users do use store apps, and there are less mobile users. If you look around the store, you'll see quite a few apps that are PC only, including ones that seem to have never been ported from win32, and explicitly written that way.
So I suspect more windows desktop users use the store, than those who generally don't would like to believe. Some people are slow to adapt, but some are faster. For those used to stores on ios and android, its a pretty familiar concept after all.
Still adoption is slow, for both devs and users. UWP is the biggest change windows has had, as I said.
Either way, I think it's windows on arm, on tablets and notebooks that will really push UWP forward. Windows s, helps a little, but its a bit of a niche product.
In contrast, Windows on arm, will just be sold as windows to consumers.
They won't know anything about what's running it. It'll just be "windows" with some additional selling points they might like the sound of.
They'll get lighter tablets that auto on, have LTE, have longer battery life, and they won't think of them as anything but windows devices. However, with its always on LTE capability, thus notifications whilst in sleep, GPS etc, they will want ios type mobility apps, chat programs, gps based programs - stuff that uses that capability, seeing as it can work exactly like a smartphone.
And win32 will run 70% of full speed at best (often I suspect worse), and not scale as well to smaller forms like 7, 8 or 9 inches. It'll be inferior as an experience versus UWP apps.
Consumers won't know why, they'll just know - this app doesn't run as well as this other app. This game doesn't run as well as this game. This app isn't touch friendly. It's too small on my tablet. It's not as good. And they'll complain.
WoA is as much a trick, using basic consumer attitudes, to leverage that against developers, as it is a new tech with consumer benefits. If a consumer finds anything not to their standard, they'll complain, post bad reviews, warn their friends away, go online an make a stink.
If they find the store to be a better experience on their new device, they'll gravitate towards it.
It'll be way more common than windows s too, in all likelihood, as I can't really see any good reason why OEMs wouldn't just at the chance to make their devices have instant wake from sleep, longer battery life, built in LTE and smaller sizes for cheaper prices. It's an easy sell. It's only the developers than have to deal with any fall out, that their app isn't in the windows store, or full UWP yet.
This, and windows s, should drive developers to write more UWP. I mean its obvious, with windows s, we already have Spotify and iTunes. Two big names that don't want to lose the kiddies. Kiddies that may grow up used to windows store. Add to that the fastest growing market in PCs, the notebook, and the fastest growing segment of tablets, the windows tablet, both featuring windows on arm, a platform where UWP is objectively/subjectively a better experience, and you should have some momentum there.
With things like this I wonder how long MSFT has been planning. Consumers often want things to happen overnight, but MSFT must have known just how hard UWP adoption would be, the uphill battle in phones, how much coding was needed for windows 10 - they must sit in a war room, year after year, for years cooking up ideas like windows on arm, windows s, to try and get the battlefront pushed forward.
Meanwhile consumers complain because companies won't burn money for them. Capitalism is not our friend, its a game. If capitalism was our friend, they'd spend more money on preventing the acidification of the ocean, and ending fossil feuls, or addressing world hunger, that they do on creating lust for mostly pointless devices, and endless consumerism.
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