Should I develop an app for Windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

[mahmoudsalah93]

should i develop an app for windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

I plan on developping an app for windows in about two weeks and due to the time i'll have to work on it, i expect it would take me a month or two. So i was wondering whether i should make it as a universal 8.1 app or is it better make it a windows 10 app considering it's almost released now. So what's your advice?

 

[emperor_skull]

Re: should i develop an app for windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

Windows 10 is the future

 

[surendra356]

Re: should i develop an app for windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

Yes first of all understand the need of your app is required. Windows phone 8.1 has developed a lot, but windows phone 10 isn't yet. If you want to target windows phone 10 then lot of users won't go for it as still wp 10 uses windows 8.x store only. So better you target on 8.1 and later you can convert it to windows phone 10 app. Its so simple. Understand the need of users first.

 

[przemek1234]

Re: should i develop an app for windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

Windows 10 Home or Pro is on the market. Windows 10 Mobile will be in Nobember! And developing an app need many weeks usually. So I think new apps should be develped for Windows 10, because they will taret not only phones, but also desktops and tablets. And in the future maybe HoloLens?

 

[mahmoudsalah93]

Yeah I won't probably finish the app before the end of January so windows 10 makes more sense, I just hope the rollout for Windows 10 doesn't take a long time. Thanks guys.

 

[surendra356]

Re: should i develop an app for windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

That's a good decision mate. I think I do make apps with app studio so it takes only 2days for me. But in case of visual studio I'm still doing it since 5 months. Since you've much time...better you target windows 10

 

[MetronomeStudio]

Re: should i develop an app for windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

Another good reason that Windows Phone 8.1 APIs are rather limited in comparison to Windows 10 Mobile APIs, which is much more feature rich. In Windows Phone 8.1 I have keep looking if the API I am about to call for is compatible with Windows 8.1. However, they didn't joke when saying Windows 10 and Mobile share the same everything - The mobile counter-parts has very good and powerful APIs that was previously only expected on tablets/laptop/powerhouses (DLNA/PlayTo host capabilities)

 

[SinistraShine]

Re: should i develop an app for windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

As there is still a lot of WP7 and WP8.0 you should start without ignoring those users if it's possible. Eventually you can switch to 8.1 or WIN10.

 

[Zulfigar]

Re: should i develop an app for windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

As there is still a lot of WP7 and WP8.0 you should start without ignoring those users if it's possible. Eventually you can switch to 8.1 or WIN10.

Actually, take the forums for instance, 7 and 8.0 are actually pretty dead...

 

[SinistraShine]

Re: should i develop an app for windows phone 8.1 or start with wm10?

Well 7 pretty much is, but I personally have been getting almost as much downloads for 8.0 than for 8.1

 

[RoboLam]

@mahmoudsalah93,

Did you complete your Win10 app? Have you considered back-porting to Win8.1? If so, can you share your experience? I'm thinking of back-porting an existing Win10 app but dont have any experience with 8.1 and curious to hear your thoughts.

 

[OrangeSpice]

I thought I would share our Windows Phone OS distribution numbers as of 27/08/2016 for WORDFIX Word Game which is available on all Windows Phones. Hope it helps

• Windows Phone 8 = 12%
• Windows Phone 8.1 = 81%
• Windows 10 Mobile = 7%

 

[Ali Poder]

I have been into the same question and then I choose to develop for 8.1 but as the project gets biggger I stumpled upon the problems... WinRT capabilities was not enough for me then I started from all over and rebuilt the app for UWP. Surprisingly it was very easy to develop compared to WinRT.

Well if you're about to build an app that WinRT API capable of what your app needs now AND for the future, then go for it. If it's not, just make an investment to the future.