Microsoft is now allowing developers to create apps for Windows 10. While the software maker is planning to release its operating system some time in the summer, developers can start getting used to the available tools today. Windows 10’s apps will run across a variety of devices, including the Xbox One, PCs, phones, and tablets. This initial SDK preview will let developers tweak their apps to work across varying screen sizes and optimize them for both touch and mouse/keyboard usage.
You can now create a single application binary that will run on Xbox One, PCs, phones, tablets, and embedded stuff. It took them a long, long time, but it seem like they’re finally making good on their promises. There’s more information, too.
I wonder if this means we’ll finally get some native Google apps on Windows. Esp Google Voice/Hangouts. And maybe even a nice Metro Gmail app as well.
I wonder if this means we will have more xBox One games released on PC
Why would Google port its apps to windows native? I don’t understand how you think that’s more likely now.
Q: Does the SDK work with VS2013?
The preview, at least, requires VS 2015 CTP6 – last month’s CTP5 won’t due.
EDIT: You can also install VS2015 alongside VS2013, though, so that’s helpful.
Edited 2015-03-23 23:38 UTC
Drumhellar,
Do you know if they finally fixed the appearance in 2015? Ever since they metro’d Visual Studio, I’ve hated it. VS2010 was visually much easier to focus on, icons and window borders were easily discerned. Adjectives I’d use for the new 2012+ interface include “flat”, “blurry”, “monochromatic”, “pale”. I think most devs hated the new appearance. The beta color scheme was atrocious! MS “fixed” it, but even the fix was a regression coming from 2010. “Yes yes, we hear you…(but we’re not listening…)”.
Developer comments…
http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/sugge…
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/753613/m…
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/05/08/visual-stud…
Lets add Metro’s all caps convention just for the hell of it.
http://www.i-programmer.info/news/177-windows-8/4324-microsoft-igno…
I really do feel Visual Studio usability suffered and the lack of depth/contrast/color is much harder on the eyes. When things don’t stand out clearly, it requires more concentration in the visual cortex to make them pop out, which is bad when you are trying to focus on other things.
Edited 2015-03-24 02:37 UTC
I’m new to Visual Studio, and new to developing anything more than simple, quick and dirty one-off tools, so my experience with VS prior to 2013 is limited, but looking at those links, and the complaints about VS 2012 compared to 2010 and prior, I can say this:
Icons:
In 2012, color has returned with most icons, but they aren’t as bright, and are rather flat in appearence. They are still largely monochromatic on per-icon basis, but not across the whole theme. For example, the start debugging icon is a green VCR-esque play arrow, and the save icons are blue, but they are flat and without detail beyond the shape.
Icons within menus tend towards monocromatic within the entire menus, with a few examples of color in what are likely the most important or used menu entries.
This appears the same with VS2015 in my quick glance through.
Menus:
Menu titles are still in all-caps in 2012, but not in 2015 – traditional capitalization has returned, but the increase in spacing between menu items is still present.
I don’t expect to get much use out of 2015 just yet – I’ve been working with XNA, which hasn’t been refreshed to work with 2015 yet, but I will poke around, it includes a ton of stuff for doing C# development for Android and iOS, including the Android SDK and an Android emulator that runs in Hyper-V. I am definitely going to check that stuff out. C# development seems to be provided by Xamarin – not sure about the details yet, though. The inclusion of Xamarin intrigues me, though, mainly because of MonoGame. I guess it’s time to start poking around with that, too.
2013 looks fine to me. I use it daily. 2012 looked horrible, but there is some colour back in the 2013 icons and my menus aren’t all caps, though I might have tweaked the registry or installed a plugin, I don’t remember…
2013 includes a theme that is closer to VS2010.
https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/9e08e5d3-6eb4-4e73-a0…
There is a theme editor for at least 2012 and 2013. I’ve never had need to use it but others in my office fiddle with everything
Hope it makes your life a little bit easier.
We just got upgraded to Office 2013, and while I don’t use most of it, I do use Outlook, which went from a fine-looking piece of software (despite being absurdly slow) to something that reminds me of Windows 2. It is the ugliest piece of mainstream software I’ve seen in 25 years, and that counts Lotus Notes.
Fortunately, for the Windows development I do, we won’t be upgrading Visual Studio any time soon.
Save us from the Pajama Boys that have overrun Microsoft’s design department! It’s been almost all downhill since Windows 2000.
I am a VS2012 and VS2013 user at home, and VS2010 user at work. And curiously, I find recent versions to be much better, both functionally and aesthetically…
To each his own, however – there should at least be an option to switch iconsets / themes to revert to the one you like…
Edited 2015-03-25 12:53 UTC
They’re still promising Xbox One support but it’s not in this edition yet.
Probably will require software updates on the consoles…
Anyway I’m most curious about how much they’re going to open up the Windows Store to Xbox One — will every random app that got a generic approval be installable on Xbox or are they still going to have some hoops to jump through to get your app or game distributed?
(Ability to sideload non-approved games/apps could be interesting too.)
Well, it requires Windows 10, and the XBox obviously hasn’t been updated yet.
I like the idea of Universal apps, but dislike some of the restrictions that come with only being able to distribute them through the Windows Store.
Among those I dislike:
“All app logic must reside within the app package. Your app must not attempt to change or extend the packaged content through any form of dynamic inclusion of code that changes how the application behaves with regard to Store Policies. Your app should not, for example, download a remote script and subsequently execute that script in the local context of the app package.”
I think MS’s own TouchDevelop app for phones breaks this requirement. It seems to disable scripts where scripts can be downloaded from remote sources. Maybe acceptable on Phones, but on Laptops/Desktops seems over-restrictive.
“Apps that contain content that would warrant a rating over PEGI 16 or ESRB MATURE are not allowed, unless the app is a game, is rated by a ratings board that is supported in the Store, and otherwise complies with all Store Policies.”
That’s just censorship. Why can’t Microsoft properly manage age-verification and let me choose whatever content I legally can in my country. There are a variety of similar clauses here.
I have no issue with MS putting these requirements on their Store, any more than I would criticise a shopkeeper for opting not to sell any product, but if there was only one shop available, and nobody was legally allowed to open another, I would object.
NOTE: Its not just Microsoft here. Google are nearly as bad (its easier to sideload), Apple are also very bad (and largely to blame, as they initiated this nonsense).
Yups. You can sideload .appx-packaged “Windows Store” apps on Windows 8/8.1 but need to register the device for development usage (and renew license every once in a while) — it’s somewhere in between Google (almost every device lets you enable sideloading) and Apple (no sideloading unless you use a security exploit to root the phone).
They haven’t locked down the desktop on traditional PCs, but you can bet there’ll be a restricted “small tablets” version soon that allows Store apps only (likely replacing Windows RT in the low end of the Surface lineup, which still *had* a desktop but limited it to Microsoft-signed Win32-ARM apps).
I’m still not super happy with the restricted store trend
but there’s always the web. 
(And the big consoles have always been even *more* locked down than iOS/WinRT/Android stores, so there’s potential for more small devs & indie games and apps for the Xbox One if they open it up to the full Windows Store or at least developer sideloading without an expensive special SDK…)
Microsoft promised that they will release Windows 10 for devices.
https://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/raspberrypi2support
I was hoping that Microsoft will have Raspberry Pi support by this release but it seems that this is not going to be any soon