BUILD 2014, San Francisco
Developing for Windows Phone and Windows (9-002) – Charles Torre, David Treadwell

Day 1, 2 Apr 2014, 12:00PM-12:20PM

Disclaimer: This post contains my own thoughts and notes based on watching BUILD 2014 keynotes and presentations. Some content maps directly to what was originally presented. Other content is paraphrased or represents my own thoughts and opinions and should not be construed as reflecting the opinion of Microsoft or of the presenters or speakers.

Charles Torre – Exec Producer – App Experience

David Treadwell – Corp Vice President, ISS Engineering

Story of Dave Cutler stopping in to ask Treadwell about afd.sys

Q: What goes through your mind, seeing how Windows has evolved over the years?

• Back in the 1990s, more constrained, not nearly as robust (e.g. secure)
• Runs on a great variety of devices

WinRT

• Win32 was beautiful, in terms of how much power it has—maximum control
• But “we need to modernize the platform”
• Prevent application from negatively impacting the system
• Viruses and malware are just not possible on the WinRT platform
• “Safer, more appropriate”

WinRT running on Win32

• Yes, runs in Win32
• Win32 infrastructure supports WinRT
• And can run modern apps on desktop (will support in future)

Q: Does Win Phone 8 support C++ AMP?

• Don’t know

Q: Is Internet of Things a later update this year? (E.g. start screen in start button)

• Many IoT things are headless
• Start Screen UI thing that Terry showed is different from IoT

Q: Is graphical diagnostic tool available for all versions of VS 2013? (Kevin’s demo)

• Don’t know

Q: When will dev preview for Win Phone 8.1 be available?

• Mid-April
• Includes Cortana

Q: Do Universal Windows app have same app lifecycle on all devices?

• We’re working to make sure that it’s the same
• Right now, some minor differences

Q: How is new C++14 standard being adopted?

• Don’t know

Q: When you buy app on phone, will you also get it on tablet? Or separate purchases?

• As dev, you can choose—use “shared app identity”, so user gets app on phone, PC, tablet

Q: What does ubiquitous computing mean for Windows?

• Azure/cloud is all based on Windows
• On devices, Windows is an “amazingly good” client platform

Q: Win XP ending soon

• XP was where NT kernel became real/mainstream
• But it’s time to advance (13 yrs old)
• It’s in everyone’s interest that we move forward

Q: Will you keep doing minor upgrades to Win Phone 8?

• For XBox 360, there’s just one version
• For Windows, we want to think of it the same way—just one version; so always up to date
• IE is example of why this is tough—a pile of different versions out there
• Treat Windows infrastructure like services

Q: Install Phone app on tablet?

• No, separate binaries

Q: Anything new on packaging front?

• Shared app identities for Store—customer just buys single app

Note: XBox One based on Windows operating system

• Different shell, but it’s really just Windows

Q: Is afd.sys on all these platforms?

• Yes, still there; but different from original

Q: Will certification processes be unified?

• Yes, working towards that
• E.g. XBox “triple A games” go through very different process

Talk about hypervisor on XBox One

• Early in design cycle, realized we need to support Windows apps
• Also support triple A games—need to know exactly the resources they can have (i.e. more of a real-time OS)
• “Game side” of OS—one game at a time, gets sole access to fixed set of resources
• Other side is Windows side—traditional Windows environment
• Games OS, Windows OS, then Hypervisor below these two, light runtime that switches
• Dave Cutler still cutting code—XBox One Hypervisor

Q: Will Start Screen tiles be integrated into new Start button

• Still working on this

Q: Can retail XBox One be used for app dev?

• Working on this; intent is that this will be true
• I.e. You’ll be able to use retail XBox One for dev

Q: Can you elaborate on relationship between BCL(?)/PCK(?) and Universal Apps?

• Universal App can invoke anything in BCL

Q: Possible to integrate Action Center in 8.1?

• Thinking about that

Q: When can we start building XAML apps for XBox One?

• XBox One shell actually written in XAML
• Not yet available, but we’re now looking at how to make this available

Q: How will apps be published on XBox One?

• We’ll use Windows Store