I've been on Windows 8 since day one and there are very few good apps. Jetpac Joyride, Wordament and Spartan Assault for games. Social media apps like StumbleUpon, Twitter and Reddit. That's about it. If this is true, hopefully it will flesh out the market. It's mostly garbage right now.
It's coming sooner or later. Hard to believe Dell would be the ones that would announce it or that it will be available at launch though.
To start with I think they'll just make it easy to port W8 apps to Xbox One. But full unification, where developers create one app that a user purchases once, that targets all platforms and syncs across them, is the end goal surely.
The unification of tablet and desktop OS with Windows 8 was the beginning. I now feel with Windows 8.1 that they've done a pretty good job of it actually.
Next things to happen will be:
- Unification of Windows and Windows Phone (I was surprised when this didn't happen with Win8 but it's coming)
- Kinect starts to become a part of Windows 8 metro apps
- Windows Store merges with Xbox App Store (this may include some games, but the Xbox One Game Store will stay separate for purpose built Xbox One games).
So in the end we'll have 3 classes of device running Windows. Each might look a bit different on the surface but each will have the same core and run the same apps (although not every app will support every device - just like iOS and Android)
- Metro only Phones/Tablets: touch is primary interface. ("Pure" Windows - for basic needs)
- PCs and tablets with full desktop support: keyboard/mouse and touch are both well supported, gamepad well supported for games, and Kinect support is there as well. (Windows augmented with classic desktop - for productivity)
- Xbox One: heavy focus on gamepad and Kinect, but keyboard and mouse will be supported also and maybe touch via SmartGlass. (Windows augmented with Xbox - for gaming and entertainment)
To be honest I think this will also lead into an "upgrade cycle" for Xbox One. We'll see new form factors with better hardware on several occasions. The game environment will remain constant, so proper Xbox One games will run the same on any Xbox One hardware through the life of the platform. But newer versions will run more apps faster. And potentially in 2017 or something we'll have a situation where some of the newest apps will no longer support the original 2013 Xbox One, but all Xbox One games will still work.
Eventually we'll get Xbox Two that will have a new game environment for a new generation of console games but will carry across the existing Windows Store from Xbox One (and all the other devices).
Anything that runs in RT/Metro should run just fine here.
Doubtful if done using C++ as it's compiled to native code (RT is ARM). Possibly if done using C# or html.
A lot of people are focusing on the quality of the apps in the Windows Store right now. You should just consider the bigger picture and what non-game Indies will be able to do on the console.
Its exciting stuff and will push the entire Windows ecosystem forward
I have been following this stuff a while and remember only a couple of instances where an app was x86 or ARM and not both. The fact that C++ is native just means you'll need to compile an ARM version as far as i know. Don't think its a concern
C++ is fully supported on Win 8 and compiles to native code, as opposed to C# which compiles for the CLR. So no, there is no compatibility between ARM and x86 for C++. Using C++ might not be the common case, but it doesn't change that particular fact.
First thing that came into my mind. lol
Shame there are pretty much no good apps.
The app store is the lowest selling point MS has. It's pretty embarrassing and completely useless.
There are actually more apps by far for the Windows Phone ecosystem than in the Windows Store. The phone platform is doing a lot better than the Windows Store in terms of getting major third party support. Obviously "desktop" apps are still king.
Win RT app store is useless right now because nobody is using WinRT on their PCs, nor they should.
But once XB1 comes out and has support for it and brings millions of devices into the fold, devs will create apps...
I like the idea of unify all MS platform but will they support backward compatible to avoid WP7 cannot upgrade to WP8 condition.
Yeah, this. But they want to be more like Apple, sell hardware and provide an ecosystem, unfortunately wouldn't really fit their current strategy. It's an interesting thought though: with their OS and their renewed hardware activities they're in a "neither here nor there" situation. I think they will have eventually step into one direction if they want to do a proper transition.Why not the other way?
Are we talking about the same thing?If true, then MS PR/marketing has really messed up over the past months.
You've got tens of thousands of W8 apps, a very strong ecosystem that's only growing, and you don't mention it as one of your selling points, only revealed through a bullet point?
Can someone give an example of how this would be useful. I'm struggling to think.
Nothing you wrote makes any sense.
WinRT is not useless, it is essential for tablets and touch screen PCs.
How do you know what people are using?
Windows 8 has sold around 150M copies already yet a few million Xbox sales is what will make the store successful? Surface will probably sell more lifetime than Xbox One, but I wouldn't say either one makes or breaks the app store. Tablet/touch PC sales will define the platform.
I could not care less about most Windows 8 apps on my TV, except for Plex.
Being able to run Plex through my Xbox One instead of a jailbroken 720p Apple TV will be so goddamn great.
WinRT is not useless?
Did you miss Ballmer being fired, MSFT being left with humongous inventory of Surface RT, OEMs backing Android over WinRT and all the other good news WinRT got this year?
Are we talking about WinRT (Windows Runtime - the new application architecture for Windows 8) or Windows RT (Windows 8 for ARM)?
C++ is fully supported on Win 8 and compiles to native code, as opposed to C# which compiles for the CLR. So no, there is no compatibility between ARM and x86 for C++. Using C++ might not be the common case, but it doesn't change that particular fact.
Watch a movie on Netflix, stop and pick up again on your tablet on the airplane.
This is absoloutely fucking huge, I can't believe how many short sighted replies there are on page 1 alone.
It's seriously fucking game changer level shit, like smartphone vs dumbphone level stuff.
Entrecôte;86844835 said:Care to give a few examples? Right now the W8 app ecosystem is tiny and has very little support.
One thing I can think of that would be very appreciated is a native media player/scraper that manages to play all formats on the box itself instead of transcoding half of them which is what plex might be doing for a while.
If the Office Suite works on X1 then MS might have themselves another customer.
Entrecôte;86844835 said:Care to give a few examples? Right now the W8 app ecosystem is tiny and has very little support.
One thing I can think of that would be very appreciated is a native media player/scraper that manages to play all formats on the box itself instead of transcoding half of them which is what plex might be doing for a while.
It would be an impressive feature, but I'm not sure I would have much use of Office on my home TV. Maybe to watch a few Powerpoint presentations that I wouldn't want to edit, but apart from that Office is best used... in an office. I mean you need at least a keyboard for convenient editing of the documents.
What is a Windows app? An application restricted to a centralized source? Like Apple iOS? I thought Windows apps could come from anywhere. Ya know, .exe's.
That's when you take out your tablet and use it to connect to your xbox and it displays a keyboard or something?
Depending on MSFT's API it might not even be hard to do.
Nothing you wrote makes any sense.
WinRT is not useless, it is essential for tablets and touch screen PCs.
How do you know what people are using?
Windows 8 has sold around 150M copies already yet a few million Xbox sales is what will make the store successful? Surface will probably sell more lifetime than Xbox One, but I wouldn't say either one makes or breaks the app store. Tablet/touch PC sales will define the platform.
What is a Windows app? An application restricted to a centralized source? Like Apple iOS? I thought Windows apps could come from anywhere. Ya know, .exe's.
Dude... C++ on ARM is just compiled to ARM machine code. It works on RT without problems.
I could not care less about most Windows 8 apps on my TV, except for Plex.
Being able to run Plex through my Xbox One instead of a jailbroken 720p Apple TV will be so goddamn great.
Netflix on Windows 8 is subpar for a tablet experience and just plain awful on a desktop
A million times yes. I use Rokus as my Plex clients on all my TVs and I have to say, I am tired of having an underpowered device handle the UI.
Just curious, but why do you think that? Looks quite nice to me. Is responsive and loads fairly quickly. Much better than using the browser on a desktop or laptop. Same for Hulu. Works well on a tablet too.