Posts Tagged ‘Windows 8’
Unity to support Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Is’n it going to be a big deal?
Posted on: December 6, 2012
Unity as a company has one mission: help games developers be more successful. Unity is one of the top game development platforms, routinely seen powering the biggest games on a multitude of platforms such as Castle Warriors, Battle Bears, Max & the Magic Marker, CSR Racing, Temple Run and Shadowgun and now it is the turn of Windows Phone to get in on the Unity action!
The decision to bring Unity to Windows Phone was driven by an upwelling of requests from developers and gamers alike. Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason has announced during the opening keynote of the Unite 12 in Amsterdam the 6th Annual Developer Conference that its game creation platform Unity will be supporting Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 after the update to Unity 4 version.
“Our mission at Unity has always been to provide solutions for developers to effortlessly bring their work to as many different platforms as possible,” said David Helgason.
Microsft senior director of Windows app marketing John Richards added: “We are excited that the Unity community will now be given the opportunity to develop world class titles for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
Let’s try to see why it is a big deal for game development world to support and bring game development on windows 8 and windows phone 8 !
Helgason claims that 53 per cent of mobile developers have made use of the Unity engine, with 300,000 of them active on a monthly basis.
Unity licenses are available for almost all other modern gaming platforms — including iOS, Android, Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 — and the engine has been used to create popular mobile games such as Shadowgun.
Now the developers community is ready and willing to bring their games to the new versions of Windows. While do we have guarantee that developers will do it painless and not taking too much time and efforts?
It is the known fact that Windows Phone 7 never really got off the ground as a gaming platform, but its successor got an early boost today in the shape of Unity support. Windows Phone (like iOS and Android) has some heavy and understandable restrictions on how things can be done. Helgason previously said that Unity didn’t support Windows Phone 7 due to its “relatively closed” nature, but expressed hope that Windows 8 would prove easier to work with. David was keen to point out that it’s no more a problem of Windows Phone 8 than any other mobile OS. Only in the last few months has the project reached the level where they are confident they are able to deliver the goods.
Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 are to share the same core so it was of interest to hear David’s thoughts on just how similar the two are platforms really are. He thinks that the two resemble more closely how Apples iOS and OSX look in terms of game development. The desktop OS naturally gives up huge amounts of resources whilst the mobile OS is far more restricted. Whilst the cores are the same, the amount that can be achieved on each platform varies greatly.
When it comes to Windows Phone 8, we’re going to see an entirely new base specification, improved GFX handling and dual core CPU. David’s feeling is that Microsoft are putting out sensible guidelines for their next gen hardware. It’s a well-known problem with Android that often times the superior hardware can’t be utilized properly or devices simply aren’t capable of rendering 3D at all. In this regard, Microsoft is making the right move by ensuring the spec of the devices remains a known constant.
But to my point of view it is hard to say either way if Microsoft have done enough with their next OS to ensure it’s a rock solid gaming platform, it’s still too early to tell.
Personally me along with many developers and just game lovers have a really good sense that Windows Phone 8 is going to work really well as a gaming platform.
There had been invested so much into the platform and to be honest it is designed very well. The Unity lovers have a good feeling that Windows Phone 8 is going to be big.
For developers using Unity and the company itself, the prospects for mobile games sales are huge. Even if the platform remains the third of fourth eco system, it will still present a valuable extra market for developers to target. For a game developer, once they have made a game in Unity, porting it to another platform is very straightforward. The economics of porting the games to other platforms like Windows Phone are actually very attractive. That should bode very well for future games releases on WP8. With little or no work in actually porting, there is almost nothing to lose in releasing to the Marketplace.
To show a positive perspective I would give the example of Microsoft’s Build developer conference held at the company’s campus in Redmond, WA, where Tony Garcia, Unity EVP of Business Development, took the stage during the mobile keynote to talk about Unity’s commitment to Windows Phone 8 by demonstrating just how empowering development for the platform can be for new and existing Unity-authored games and apps.
Tony spoke while Field Engineer Corey Johnson toured the Unity development environment, using a level from Madfinger’s Shadowgun as the example project. The short demonstration provided onlookers (both on-site and online) unfamiliar with Unity a good idea of the power, versatility, and efficiency of the tools. As Tony talked, Corey demonstrated how easily projects can be changed between platforms and built for Windows Phone 8 in Unity.
Shadowgun was then demonstrated running on a Windows Phone 8 mobile device and it looked mighty fantastic.
It’s clear that Unity is going to play a big role in the early months of Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 device availability with games like Shadowgun, Ski Safari, and Temple Run headlining a number of other amazing Unity-authored titles. And as the Shadowgun level demonstrates, things are looking good!
“The number of high-quality Unity-authored games for the PC, Xbox, and mobile devices already created is staggering and we’re looking forward to seeing these products appear in the Windows Store and the Windows Phone Marketplace,” senior director of Windows app marketing at Microsoft John Richards said.
To summarize all said above I would say that I am both excited and positive about Windows Phone 8′s gaming future. Unity should help light up Windows Phone 8 as a gaming platform. With Unity, Porting games to and from Windows Phone should take only a couple of days isn’t it great?!
While we couldn’t learn about future games coming to Windows Phone 8, I were assured that we are going to be very excited to see what’s coming. It is really interesting to observe who and how many developers are switching to developing for Windows Phone now that Unity is coming to the platform? How quickly people will be following it? What thoughts and “forecast” do you have in mind? I have a strong feeling that Things are about to change 
.. And you?
Kind regards,
Polina Mikhan – Business Development Manager (LI page)
Polina.Mikhan@altabel.com
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
Lots of companies think about developing mobile clients for their services for Widows Phone and Windows 8. In most cases mobile clients for iOS/Android have already been created and company’s objective is to port them to Windows mobile platforms. In this article I’d like to talk about questions/problems/peculiarities companies and developers can face porting their apps to WP and Win8.
What’s important to know about Modern UI interface?
Windows Phone and Windows 8, unlike iOS for instance, are authentically digital platforms. What it means can be easily explained on the example of a bookshelf for iOS, where human’s behavior while reading a magazine or a book is imitated from the real life – we go to the bookshelf, take a magazine, open it and flip it through. The same process for Windows Phone looks absolutely separated from the real life and is initially oriented to the digital world, where the concept of “bookshelf” is missing at all.
A second distinction from iOS/Android is an emphasis on content and action orientation. In Windows Phone and Windows 8 phone numbers and e-mail addresses are written in small fonts, while actions like “call” or” “send e-mail” in the big ones. Large fonts and shifts is another Metro feature. It should be definitely taken into account while designing interfaces.
Other peculiarities of the platforms
1) Mostly, Android is tied to Google eco-system, iOS – to Apple, Windows Phone and Windows 8 – to Microsoft eco-system accordingly. This can be both an advantage and a drawback. For example, it will be easier to work with office documents, but instead of tight integration with Dropbox you will be proposed to use SkyDrive.
2) Platform limitations. Windows Phone is a rather strict platform. There are clear limits for application start time, sizes of downloaded files depending on the kind of Internet connection, quantity of background operations etc. Due to such limitations even “native” for Windows Phone Skype doesn’t always work as it is expected from a proper messenger.
3) Specific requirements for Windows 8 scenarios. There are so called contracts in Windows 8 – Search, Share etc., with the help of which such scenarios as “search in application”, “repost smth in social networks” or “open the file in another application” are performed. It should be separately said about Settings and Share – in Windows 8 they should be only in the sidebar. Duplication of functionality inside the application is highly undesirable.
Navigation bar in Windows Phone and Windows 8 differ. Windows Phone has mostly linear navigation (non-linear navigation is allowed only in exceptional cases and thoroughly tested), while Windows 8 is more loyal to the navigation model. Moreover, you will have to think over the possibility of a quick access to the application main screens from any screen.
4) Windows Phone 7.5 vs. Widows Phone 8. You should remember that at the moment there are several main Windows Phone versions:
• Mango — Windows Phone 7.5 (512 MB of memory);
• Mango — Windows Phone 7.8 (512 MB of memory) — the update has not been released yet;
• Tango — Windows Phone 7.5 (256 MB of memory);
• Apollo — Windows Phone 8.
If you’ve decided to support 7.x platform, you need to think whether the application will support Tango devices (budget ones) that are more sensitive to the memory used by the applications. In case you need NFC or in-app purchases (IAP), you should straightway focus on Windows Phone 8.0 or support two versions of the application (7.x and 8.x).
Thanks for consideration. In case you have some thoughts to add on the topic or even have already ported some app from iOS/Android to WP or Win8, I’d be glad to see your comments here.
Thank you,
Kind regards,
Nadya Klim – Business Development Manager (LI page)
Nadya.Klim@altabel.com
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
As you may know, the main thing which Windows 8 has adopted from Windows Phone is live tiles; a user can see them right after the computer starts. The more popularity Windows 8 will gain, the more people will wonder: what are the tiles for? What’s the use of them?
Potential customers are already a bit familiar with live tiles conception, for example, from the Nokia Lumia advertisement. Hence, they imagine what kind of information is displayed on them. Nevertheless, the number of those who are familiar with live tiles is negligible in comparison with the number of potential Windows 8 users. In the next two years Modern interface in Windows 8 is expected to cause confusion.
People will either love or hate these live tiles. But anyway Windows Phone 8 interface will seem familiar for Windows 8 users, even if they’ve never seen those smartphones. The same is with Windows Phone users – Windows 8 interface should be known to them.
Huge attention has been given to cloud integration in Windows 8. The same thing is for Windows Phone: products for these platforms and for Xbox 360 as well will be able to interact through SkyDrive and Xbox services tied up to Microsoft account (former Live ID).
Office and OneNote products for Windows Phone have already stored documents in SkyDrive, and now Office 2013 applications can do the same. It means you can create a document on one platform and continue your work on another one, and the application automatically determines where you’ve stopped your work last time. Photos made with WP-smartphone can be automatically uploaded to SkyDrive, and then they are automatically displayed in Windows 8 gallery. The same is with Facebook.
Also, Microsoft is going to implement tablets and phones interaction with Xbox 360 console. For this purpose SmartGlass application is to be released. The application will allow mobile devices to work as a console remote control and will display context information on the screen. Thus, smartphone or tablet may be used as a secondary screen in the games. Let me remind you that Xbox Live achievements are already synchronized among games versions for different platforms. Xbox Music service will provide an access to the music store and free broadcast from any device. Microsoft is not forcing to use Windows Phone, company’s service integration is available for other platforms as well, although in Windows Phone 7 and 8 it is more fully implemented. SkyDrive and OneNote clients are available for Symbian (only uploading files to the services), Android and iOS (with full functionality). According to Microsoft, next year service Xbox Music will become available for Android and iOS users. Microsoft has shown an excellent example of respectable attitude to its users.
For some time computer and mobile OSes resemblance will be only external. Although porting from Windows to Windows Phone is a quite simple process, users will have to buy separately the same application for different platforms.
It is the first time we see common interface in mobile and computer OSes. Earlier Microsoft was trying to port desktop Windows interface to smartphones on Windows Mobile. While now the company ports mobile sensor interface into computer operating system. Even Apple haven’t ventured on this.
The decision to use 2 kinds of interface in Windows 8 –desktop and Modern- is certainly rather controversial. The company risks encounter users’ complaint, who will confuse these interfaces and spend their time to find where the needed program starts from.
The situation can change only if lots of blue-chip Windows 8 applications appear in Windows Store. In this case users will be able to give up traditional desktop mode and switch fully to the Modern one.
For starting most of the applications desktop mode is needed, but in prospect more and more applications will start in Modern interface. Popularity and demand for Modern interface fully depends on applications developers. Currently there are relatively few applications in Windows Store – only 8,5 thousand. In case the quantity of applications for Windows 8 grows the same as for Windows Phone, in a couple of years there will be more than 100 thousand of them. By the way, many Windows Phone applications can be installed as trials version, which do not go separately from full versions. Let’s compare it with Android and iOS, where trial and full versions are two different applications.
After users start switching from Windows 7 to Windows 8, the number of Windows Phone 8 users will grow, opening huge perspectives in front of applications developers. Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 work on the common core, which allows easily porting from one platform to another one. Huge amount of Windows8 users will inevitably pay their attention to the mobile version of this platform – Windows Phone 8. The interface will be familiar to them, applications will be the same, why not buy such a smartphone?
Thank you for consideration. I know there are still lots of opponents of the OSes discussed, but I’m eager to learn your thoughts on Windows 8 and WP 8, and first impressions as well.
Best regards,
Nadya Klim
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
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Go-To Prescriptive Guidance for .NET Developers Building on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and HTML5
Telerik, a market-leading provider of end-to-end solutions for application development, automated testing, agile project management, reporting, and content management across all major Microsoft development platforms, has recently released “Platform Guidance for Microsoft.NET”. And , you know, it worth reading. It has been shared hundreds of times socially and is at the top of the list for Google searches. This document is easy to read and it highlights best practices and tips for .NET developers looking to leverage the latest Microsoft technologies. The advice is spot-on, and although somewhat basic, still worth your time.
I`d like to present a short overview of it. The goal of the document is to provide clear, direct guidance when picking a .NET platform. Platforms are suggested based on their ability to provide the most benefit for specific application scenarios relative to other .NET options. Platforms discussed within the guidance document include:
· Desktop Applications -WPF
WPF is still the choice for rich, beefy, custom Windows apps. However noticeable fact is that it wasn’t recommended for any of the other five scenarios. It’s comforting to hear that Silverlight is still a recommended technology however with some caution: Silverlight is also a good candidate for building desktop apps, sharing many of the same characteristics of WPF. While it seems clear that Microsoft will not release a major version beyond the recently released Silverlight 5.
· Dashboard/Reporting Applications – ASP.NET MVC with HTML5
Combination of ASP.NET MVC and HTML5 may be an ideal variant to maximize reach: ASP.NET MVC with HTML5 can give developers the power to build applications that are usable on any PC or mobile device. As we see HTML5 has surrounded us: assimilate or die J
WinForms can be a viable alternative for applications that do not need the power and richness of HTML5 or XAML
· Data-Driven Websites – ASP.NET MVC and Web API
ASP.NET MVC provides developers with maximum control over website rendering and helps to maximize performance.
· Interactive Web Applications (Forms over Data) – ASP.NET WebForms
In this case Telerik suggests using ASP.NET WebForms. It`s the most mature ASP.NET variant and it`s the fastest way to build “desktop-like” rich application with web technologies.
· Mobile Website – ASP.NET MVC HTML5
ASP.NET MVC with HTML5 is considered to be an ideal choice for mobile websites: HTML5 helps mobile websites deliver more functionality in a single view and ASP.NET MVC, with its highly configurable views, provides the simplest path for delivering HTML5 to devices.
· Tablet Applications – XAML and .NET
Since Microsoft is making it clear that Windows 8 is their ideal platform for tablet apps, the bigger question developers must answer is how to develop tablet apps. Tablet apps can be built with either XAML/.NET or HTML/JavaScript. Both approaches have access to the full capabilities of the device and share a common Windows Runtime API. However the primaly recommend and focus on XAML and.NET. High-performance games may be developed using Direct X.
When this document was published Windows 8 was still in pre-beta and it didn’t get any recommendations; Telerik said it will update the document in time to reflect that. Also they promised to dwell on mobile development later.
Those were the recommendations from Telerik. And what are you personal recommendation regarding the choice of correct .NET technologies for a project?
Look forward to you comments.
Kind regards,
Anna Kozik – Business Development Manager (LI page)
Anna.Kozik@altabel.com
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
