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Microsoft suspends development of touch-friendly (UWP based) Office apps for Windows. The focus is on the iOS, Android, Web, and Win32 versions of the apps.

This does not bode well for Microsoft's rumored "Surface Andromeda".

It's kinda sad to watch. They're just directionless. As the Ars article pointed out, the company literally just showed off Office on the Surface Hub 2. The left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing.

It's always the way with MS. When it comes to Enterprise level stuff they do well. When it comes to consumer based stuff it's amazing how bad they handle it. One wonders how Xbox has survived. It's one of the few consumer based items that they've stuck with and had good success with.

Pville_Piper wrote:

It's always the way with MS. When it comes to Enterprise level stuff they do well. When it comes to consumer based stuff it's amazing how bad they handle it. One wonders how Xbox has survived. It's one of the few consumer based items that they've stuck with and had good success with.

Xbox is actually pretty amazing these days. If Xbox had some of the Sony exclusives (which obviously wouldn't make them exclusives) PlayStation would be quite insignificant. The Xbox OS (i will not call it W10) is shockingly better than whatever Sony uses for the PS4/Pro.

Sad they can't transfer those skills to other areas. Though, honestly, I don't have THAT many complaints about W10. It's fine and IMO it's the best Windows ever made.

The Xbox OS has certainly improved in the last couple years. It was painful in 2016, but I got to play with an Xbox One X that a friend bought and it's nice. Same goes for the controller, it's better than Sony's. Not gonna get one of my own but still impressive.

Thing is I didn't buy a console for the interface, I got it for the games. Right now everything I want to play is cross platform except for Spider-Man, a PS4 exclusive.

DancinJack wrote:

I don't have THAT many complaints about W10. It's fine and IMO it's the best Windows ever made.

It may be the best ever version of Windows but it is stagnating when it comes to innovation.

Yeah, look at the phone, Win10 mobile is a very good operating system. Unfortunately, they burnt every bridge by constantly flailing around and changing the OS so that no developer would bother rewriting their apps yet again. No leadership. Then they caved to the shareholders' and walked away from it.

Amazon is cleaning up with loT and Home Hub and embarrassing MS. They are just clueless. One wonders how long Surface will las.

Pville_Piper wrote:

Yeah, look at the phone, Win10 mobile is a very good operating system. Unfortunately, they burnt every bridge by constantly flailing around and changing the OS so that no developer would bother rewriting their apps yet again. No leadership. Then they caved to the shareholders' and walked away from it.

Amazon is cleaning up with loT and Home Hub and embarrassing MS. They are just clueless. One wonders how long Surface will las.

The saddest part about the Amazon stuff is that the Google Assistant is like, miles and miles better than Alexa. AFAIK there isn't anything Alexa can do now that Google can't. All about the relationships you make (meaning Amazon, Apple, Google, MS, etc) with other companies. I'm sure there are still more Echo devices in the wild than Google Homes but I have a feeling that may change in the future. Especially with TV's. Google dominates the TV space.

edit: also, yeah, the Xbox controller (and more specifically the Xbox Elite controller) is freaking amazing. Best game controller I have ever used by a long shot.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... uild-17134
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ember-2018
WinRT/UWP are still improving every Windows 10 release, so going from 'Office Mobile apps suspended' to 'UWP is dead' is a bit of a leap.

derFunkenstein wrote:

Thing is I didn't buy a console for the interface, I got it for the games. Right now everything I want to play is cross platform except for Spider-Man, a PS4 exclusive.

I like some of those exclusives, but not enough to actually turn on my PS4 Pro when the X1X versions of other games look so much better. It's been collecting dust a while...ought to let it go.

I hope the PS5 is worth my time, though. Whenever that's coming.

Pville_Piper wrote:

It's always the way with MS.

Agreed. This is just what they do. I know there are some good technical reasons for the API churn in Windows, but it does make me wonder when the churn is going to stop. You'd think those reasons would go away eventually.

From my perspective, it appears that Microsoft has traditionally been too concerned about internal office politics and shareholder pressure to really push a product positioned in a competitive market through to feature complete maturity while retaining (and constantly refining) a cohesive customer story. This results in MS Marketing at times feeling like a set of unguided, unstable missiles fired in random directions at random intervals.

Microsoft was built on proprietary software which implies a captive audience in an Enterprise setting -- you need to buy a lot of licenses and a lot of certified consultants and IT support staff to run its stuff. Once you've made that investment, it's easier to stick with what you know rather than to jump to something new. And even then, MS still made poor decisions when it came to ease of use of their products; in my -- admittedly anectdotal -- experience it was like they lived in their own little bubble with no clue what it was actually like to deploy their poorly designed install and update story.

In a more competitive consumer setting where the consumer has little or no platform investment and will use whatever works the best for her, Microsoft's management model and (until recently) lacking feedback loop was (and is?) hurting it badly. MS Research is staffed by super competent people, but their ideas get mangled and then killed on the way to market without reaching maturity and momentum by god knows who. And if the product manages to survive because some chief with a lot of staying power endorses it and ensures that meddling idiots don't get to ruin the flow of engineering resources needed to make the product a proper success, the inherent quality of the developers and engineers working at MS will eventually shine through.

In the Cash Cow Enterprise setting, you don't touch what works or what customers have gotten used to, which unsurprisingly leads to a steady revenue stream which in turn can be used to improve your product incrementally. For proof, you only need to look at MS Office. As I understand it, the MS Office development department categorically refuses to include code they don't own, be it toolkits or whatever, PRECISELY because they know that such efforts from other departments may be cancelled by non-software development trained MBAs at any given point in time.

Sticking with your product and doing relentless iteration (while pouring in the resources necessary for pursuing this method), really is the only way to produce -- and keep producing -- great products that evolve with the customer's expectations as I see it. From observing the development trajectory of iOS, Android and even large computer game franchises, it clearly takes years and countless iterations and QA cycles before your vision of your product becomes properly realised to the point where your target audience is happy and satisfied with it.

People are obivously free to disagree or point out the many ways in which I'm dead wrong. =)

LostCat wrote:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/whats-new/windows-10-build-17134
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ember-2018
WinRT/UWP are still improving every Windows 10 release, so going from 'Office Mobile apps suspended' to 'UWP is dead' is a bit of a leap.

I mean, look at who made the OP, and you'll understand the leap. I agree that UWP isn't dead, but there's no doubt Microsoft lacks vision.

derFunkenstein wrote:

I mean, look at who made the OP, and you'll understand the leap. I agree that UWP isn't dead, but there's no doubt Microsoft lacks vision.

I know. It's not like we haven't dicussed the same thing before. Several times.

Overall I think MS has done a pretty fantastic job with all this. It just wasn't ready with 8/8.1 or early versions of 10. I'm not saying they deserve the black eye everything has gotten...but I'm not saying they don't either.

derFunkenstein wrote:

LostCat wrote:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/whats-new/windows-10-build-17134
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ember-2018
WinRT/UWP are still improving every Windows 10 release, so going from 'Office Mobile apps suspended' to 'UWP is dead' is a bit of a leap.

I mean, look at who made the OP, and you'll understand the leap. I agree that UWP isn't dead, but there's no doubt Microsoft lacks vision.

Wearing my gaming PC builder hat now - I personally think UWP is CRAP! UWP only devices are CRAP! I’ll go as far as to say that UWP only devices should not be refered to as Windows devices as they are a fracking travesty, worthy only of the bile at the back of my throat.

The Windows Central dopes are the absolute worst when it comes to these sh1ty devices (OMG it has a stylus and leather!).

Both UWP and Windows on ARM are a blight on the Windows platform landscape. This blight must be eradicated.

x64 or nothing!

You won't be gaming on a UWP-only device, though, so why does your Windows gamer/builder hat matter?

"S Mode" devices can game to a limited degree (if x86). I've installed Cuphead and a few other games that are very light on resources. You won't be doing steam but you can do some.

I have no issues with the existence of Windows on ARM, but I do with that both .NET and UWP etc would go the way of the dodo.

I see Win32 as the Microsoft equivalent of POSIX on Linux/UNIX, and is the most stable base. That's what I target the few times I need something to run of Windows (usually something command line or Qt based, but still rare).

End User wrote:

The Windows Central dopes are the absolute worst when it comes to these sh1ty devices (OMG it has a stylus and leather!).

I love their "reviews"... This is the best _____... And then never have any discussion at the bottom of the article. It's definately for the light weight user.

derFunkenstein wrote:

You won't be gaming on a UWP-only device, though, so why does your Windows gamer/builder hat matter?

I view UWP and Windows on ARM as a direct threat to my x64 Windows gaming existence.

It's ok EU. You don't have to worry. I'll stay here and sit with you if you need it.

srg86 wrote:

I see Win32 as the Microsoft equivalent of POSIX on Linux/UNIX, and is the most stable base.

I think you're right about that. I doubt Microsoft will be successful on anything we might call a reasonable timeframe of replacing Win32, but they do seem to be trying their best to find something which will do the job. You might argue that's not a great idea, and I'd probably agree with you on that also. Outside of some container, the idea of trying to use the same APIs across a variety of different devices has never seemed like a great idea, but maybe that's just me.

DragonDaddyBear wrote:

"S Mode" devices can game to a limited degree (if x86). I've installed Cuphead and a few other games that are very light on resources. You won't be doing steam but you can do some.

I actually changed my Go out of S Mode (it was so easy even End User could do it!) and played win32 games on it! It was craaaaazy.

Redocbew wrote:

It's ok EU. You don't have to worry. I'll stay here and sit with you if you need it.

srg86 wrote:

I see Win32 as the Microsoft equivalent of POSIX on Linux/UNIX, and is the most stable base.

I think you're right about that. I doubt Microsoft will be successful on anything we might call a reasonable timeframe of replacing Win32, but they do seem to be trying their best to find something which will do the job. You might argue that's not a great idea, and I'd probably agree with you on that also. Outside of some container, the idea of trying to use the same APIs across a variety of different devices has never seemed like a great idea, but maybe that's just me.

I personally don't think they should bother trying to replace Win32, especially not with something like .NET, but then I'm a native code fanboy to be honest.

BTW It appears UWP is just a disaster: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/10/ ... indows-10/

srg86 wrote:

I personally don't think they should bother trying to replace Win32, especially not with something like .NET, but then I'm a native code fanboy to be honest.

I'm looking at VS 2017's new project page right now and there's no way to build anything new WITHOUT .NET. Even the "Getting started" Desktop App template is Windows Forms and .NET 4.6.2. There's (apparently) no way to build old Win32 API stuff without the .NET class library.

Reminders me a bit of the Microsoft Courier project. Given that Courier predated the iPad and got many of the same things right in the design, Andormeda was probably a very forward thinking and revolutionary design which Apple will undoubtedly come out with 6 months later and be first because MS axed it internally. Sometimes it is called fate.

It's got a continuous rumor stream going and I'd say Andromeda is likely to land before or in 2020.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/3/1793 ... -interview

I've got no crystal ball of course, but it sure seems like it's still coming.

Not sure what's terrible about UWP gaming. Mod restrictions are disappearing, forza 4 runs great, and I much prefer the way apps are handled. Meh, i'll take uwp, particularly since it's often more mobile code.

sweatshopking wrote:

Not sure what's terrible about UWP gaming. Mod restrictions are disappearing, forza 4 runs great, and I much prefer the way apps are handled. Meh, i'll take uwp, particularly since it's often more mobile code.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/10/ ... indows-10/

This is almost like Firewire vs USB. UWP might technically be better than other methods (in time) but that doesn't mean it's not a dumpster fire right now with virtually zero support.

DancinJack wrote:

virtually zero support.

Yeah if you start having problems with the Store on bigger installs you're pretty much screwed. There is no help, or the help doesn't help...

Pretty sure that isn't the first time Afterburner has caused problems with em though.

where andromeda is: https://www.neowin.net/news/theres-some ... s-his-baby