Microsoft’s next attempt to fill the Windows 10 app gap: Web app apps (original) (raw)

BARCELONA, Spain—Until today, Microsoft hasn’t said a whole lot about development on Windows 10. We know “universal apps” that can run substantially unaltered on phones, tablets, desktop PCs, and even the Xbox—and maybe one day, the HoloLens—are core to Microsoft’s Windows 10 vision. We know that these universal apps will build on the ground work laid by Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1. But beyond that, the company has kept very quiet about the developer story.

The big message is still “Wait for the Build conference in April,” but today at MWC the company started to open up about app development on Windows 10, announcing one new feature that might help with the troublesome app gap.

Windows 10 will let developers publish Web apps through the store. These will be true Web apps, run remotely from a developer’s existing Web infrastructure without any modifications. Windows 10 will still support HTML and JavaScript development, and it will still support Cordova/PhoneGap style development where Web apps are packaged and deployed locally. This will be a third option.

On its own, that might not seem a big deal; it turns existing Web apps into Windows apps, but the apps themselves won’t change. However, Windows 10 will give these apps special powers.

Normally, browser-based apps are constrained by the browser sandbox. They have no access to operating system APIs, and they’re given constrained access to, for example, persistent storage, cameras, and microphones. When a Web app is published for Windows 10, however, these constraints will be relaxed. The Web apps will be able to check if they’re running as a special blessed app, and if so, they’ll be able to do some of the things that normal apps can do (for example, generate Windows notifications or show full-screen video without prompting) that regular Web apps normally can’t.