👨💻☎ WinUI Community Call: June 21, 2023 #8487
Replies: 25 comments 71 replies
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When will the roadmap be properly updated? |
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The roadmap is shown by gabby in the beginning of every community call. You can check the latest video for the latest roadmap. Usually later on upcoming improvements are also mentioned. If you talk about the product board page: it is deprecated, which was topic in more than one community call. |
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Thats not a roadmap. But this is really the one used internally by Microsoft, it would explain the disaster that WinUI3 and WinAppSdk is at the moment. |
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The WinUI team suggested that roadmap and open source news would be made available at Microsoft Build 2023. I missed the discussion and, of course, the discussion wasn't recorded. I heard from attendees, however, that those items were not shared. So... we're back to the original question. |
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Face your most commented issue - Add WinUI 3.0 XAML Designer in Visual Studio. |
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This topic was discussed more than once already (if I remember correctly with answer from Bob Pulliam and Ryan Demopoulos) and the designer is not necessarily an issue of Winui/WASK but with Visual Studio Dev Team. Since the community (we) reported a low use of the designer for UWP (any maybe even WPF) this is not a priority. I personally think it is pretty readable if developers use speaking names for (dependency) properties. |
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I found it hard to believe WPF developer is not using designer, most WPF application is UI based, if not then they just use Console App. Maybe the UWP developer is mostly from Web Dev? I think the problem is not whether this feature is important or not, but this feature is not an MS priority. |
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So you produce a shitty tool and then use the refusal of people using it as an indicator that it isn't important? Yeah sounds like great modern software management. Why not check Xcode and Android Studio to see how many people there would say, no we don't use it, plain code is good enough for me. |
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You mean like the C++/WinRT tooling promised to us during the CppCon 2016, as means to make up for deprecating C++/CX? Or the XAML islands and XAML direct from 2019? Better wait seated. |
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There are rumors on Reddit that MAUI will be scrapped to give way to Blazor Native. Scrapping MAUI is a good thing. It is a mistake that should have never happened. Xaml world was in a sad state already and there was no need to introduce another dialect, with another platform, when moving on with UWP would have been the better idea. But, the direction that Office and Teams is taking - web apps, be it Blazor or React or whatever, is hideous. I am yet to see a web app performing better than a native one, and on shared environments like Azure Virtual Desktop or Citrix, web-apps just bring the servers down. |
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We are dearly missing:
Are there plans to facilitate interoperability with Win32? WinForms and WPF both have native classes and APIs, which makes interop with Win32 easier. We need an easier way to catch Windows messages, without subclassing the main window using Win32 APIs. Overriding a method like WndProc will be good enough. More examples: WinForms has an ImageList class, which makes it easier to integrate with the Shell and Taskbar. In WASDK we need to go all the way down to bare-metal Win32. |
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It is not working for anyone using C++ with the WinUI3 toolkit that is written in C++. Or Rust or any other language. Don't want to add a non portable monster runtime when the major revenue comes in from MacOS and Windows is just a port. Yes i said it now, windows is just 2nd ... for a few years already. MS has not the power anymore to enforce their tools and languages technologies and on the world. Tides have changed. |
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I second the need for a working inking toolkit. And offline device local text recognition software. |
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@llothar You're better off with Qt or if budget allows, VCL/Firemonkey. |
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I wouldn't touch VLC/Firemonkey with a three-meter pole. The last trial version I tried crashed on the splash screen. :-) |
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It is of low quality, but that's not even the point. DataGrid is one of the key components, like ListView, TextBox or Button, and it is at least strange that it is not part of the standard set of controls available out of the box. Let's look at it from the other side: why not move the Button into Community Toolkit then? Because it would be silly, so why should we reference some library to use DataGrid? |
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I would like to ask if the team could make it possible to post release notes in the style the maui team does. There a mention is done to address fixed issues. Lately I've found several fixed issues, that were resolved silently. On the official release notes it then looks like "mhm, not much has happened, I think I can skip this release", but unknowingly something was changed (for the better). Example: https://github.com/dotnet/maui/releases/tag/8.0.0-preview.3.8149 |
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I'm sorry if this is out of scope, but could anyone give us an update on WebAuthenticationBroker? Is it still being worked on for WinUI 3 apps? |
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I want to hear news about Input Validation support. #179 |
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This is the never ending saga, such a crucial function for LOB applications but it's ignored because it's not shiny |
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I don't understand what's going on in their minds. LOB applications spin trillions of dollars worldwide. 💵🌎 |
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Obviously they have drank too much of hipster's kool-aid that web apps are all the world needs and wants... It is tragedy. |
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Just as airplane was designed to fly and ship was designed to sail on the high seas. Web and Desktop applications have also been designed for your different demands. This new generation of Redmonds are like ants without antennae. 🐜📡❌ |
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I thought they have already supported it considering that C#/WinRT maps INotifyDataErrorInfo to WinUI 3. |
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Please add XamlApplication API, an application implementing IXamlMetadataProvider interface. It allows us to use WinUI 3 controls easily from a code with any language projections and no XAML. #8475 |
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The Fluent 2 session at Build did not mention how to use Fluent 2 in WinUI. Is this available in WinUI 2 or 3 releases today? Or scheduled for later? |
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Hmm... I think Fluent 2 is designed more for the web part, in some of their documentation (for windows) they have linked to the WinUI 3 documentation. |
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@ghost1372 The images are too big, can you delete them? I'm asking for precise targeting information--what version of WinUI/WinAppSDK is needed to take advantage of Fluent 2. Will it be supported on Windows 10? Are all controls updated? etc. etc. etc. |
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Mybe version 1.4-experimental1 |
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@ghost1372 Thanks, will check it out! |
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I am not sure if Fluent 2 offers anything specific to WinUI - but that WinUI 3 is being included under the "Fluent 2" family. Fluent 2 seems mostly to be the React and Web UI platform and could be used for PWA web apps that look consistent and good on Windows 11. AFAIK there are no changes coming to existing WinUI control templates. |
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Is the information available on https://microsoft.github.io/microsoft-ui-xaml up to date? For example in the about page it is mentioned WinUI 3 has support for pen input, but i'm not finding much documentation online on InkCanvas availability in winui 3. I'm also noticing outdated information like the date of the next community call in the main page, and the discord link on the page. It seems that the winui team is not as active as it used to be on this discord channel. Is this something still being looked at?
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The about page also mentions webview2 is not available for winui 2 but this is not the case currently anymore |
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April 12, day when Windows App SDK version 1.3 has been released. That day, I reported problem with touch keyboard, which still not show for PasswordBox. @gabbybilka asked @codendone and @Scottj1s for ability to repro problematic behavior, but they ignored her. Two other people had same problem and we waited for your answer, but nothing happened. I tried to ask again @gabbybilka, but I have been ignored.
Issue: #6291 |
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With recent changes for servicing update (1.3.1) for title in XAML, can we imagine a better way to set the minimum size of an application with an XAML version (like we can do with WinUiEx) for 1.4 or 1.5 ? |
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The latest Insider builds of Windows 11 feature the new File Explorer with Xaml islands and WinUI 3 content. Would you please report on the status of Xaml Islands / Content and when and how these can be used in Win Forms and WPF applications? What are the restrictions? Will third-party controls like WCT work within Islands? |
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The WinAppSDK version of File Explorer doesn't use Xaml islands. It doesn't need to. edit: ok I checked. It seems it uses both WinUI 2 and 3 at the same time? I don't know, it's weird. |
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The only way to achieve this is to use some kind of "island". If we can do this, too, embed WinUI 3 controls / presenter into a Win32 (read Windows Forms or WPF) app, it would be great. Right now, complete WinUI 3 apps are a pain to develop. Too much interop, too much going back to the old ages of Win32... Worse than MFC. |
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Is File Explorer open source already? I did not get the impression in the last Community Call that they use Xaml or WinUI2. |
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No, and it never will be, if you ask me. It is too tightly integrated with a core OS component: the Shell. |
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File Explorer uses WinUI 3, whereas other bits of explorer.exe (like the Taskbar) use WinUI 2. This is made possible by an internal API within Windows. |
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Any more updates on a good (if not best in class) design time experience for WinUI app design |
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We received an update at the last standup or so. It's a large task and there are no plans to work on it. It's not happening. Folks should instead get comfy with XAML hot reload. |
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I understand that, but will continue to ask until I get an answer I am happy with lol |
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Good. I'd rather see that time spent else where. 😁 |
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Can you comment on the rumors comming out of Build about the future of WinUI 3? That WinUI 3 future might be unsure since MAUI seems to be adding a WPF backend? |
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@MEK3DK , what is this about MAUI adding a WPF backend? |
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I did not attend Build but somebody posted it on Twitter, I kind of ignored that. Now somebody also posted it in this forum, so I would like the team to just give a quick answer. Probably the same rumor just going around. In some way it makes sense to add WPF, but also a large and unlikely task. |
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RichTextLinks have been broken in touch scenarios for 2 years. What's the status of #6513? |
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The fixed this in latest WinAppSDK 1.3.2 announced today - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/windows-app-sdk/stable-channel#version-132-13230602002 |
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Thanks for the heads up. There's still the lingering question about servicing UWP/WinUI 2. Hope that gets answered, good or bad. |
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This is probably going to be contentious but it feels to me as someone who has followed WinUI since it was "open sourced" - and before the product had a name - that progress has pretty much stopped. No updated roadmap in ages. Critical (for LOB apps) things like validation still not done. There are issues I've raised over 4 years ago which are still open and unaddressed. Looking at the open issues is worrying; very rarely does the team comment and the majority of issues that have been opened aren't responded to, and when they are they are usually by non-MSFT people. Is there any plans to address the growing backlog of issues that have been raised? |
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I have read hundreds of posts over last few months related to disappointment caused due to WinUI 3's non-maintenance, non-response, careless attitude. Not having money and resources for this shows their low-level of confidence on WinUI 3. Or probably AI and Cloud computing is just too lucrative that they have become insensitive to Windows developers. Again and again I have my doubts that Microsoft may just buy out another UI framework and drop WinUI 3? |
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Steve Ballmer made some mistake, but we cannot not say that he was passionate and really cared about windows (and windows development) |
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I don't know how it works with C++, but better AOT support is something that's being worked on for C# and (hopefully) consequently C#/WinRT. |
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@llothar , there is nothing wrong with having the data in the cloud, but businesses still need a snappy, powerful apps to work with. Web, advanced as it is, still offers inferior UX, esp. when it comes to integration with Office and particularly Excel. Now, in my app, I can let users just select a range in the grid and copy & paste it into Excel. Good luck doing so in a web app without asking for user permissions, or downloading a file. And streaming clipboard content from a web-app? Please. |
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@eduardobragaxz |
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@DarranRowe thanks! |
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How do you expect people to work with and be excited about WinUI if even Microsoft itself is going in the opposite direction and abandoning native apps and replacing them with web apps? |
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This is so depressing that I cry. And, no, I don't buy the excuse that Office is a huge, separate team, a company within the company. Same goes for Teams: again a slow, memory-guzzler, a web app, the new one, too. There must be a company-wide strategy for applications. For Christ sake, Teams doesn't even implement Fluent UI. P.S. I tried the new Outlook. It is slower than the native version, consumes more memory, and lacks simple features like copy & paste a file from Windows Explorer into a new message as attachment. I cringed and hastily returned back to the old Outlook. P.P.S. And it is touch-unfriendly. I tried it in tablet mode, and I cringed even more. |
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I can forgive only Teams to be web based, it's huge, complex, lot integrations and cross platform... But for all the rest of apps there are no excuses, it's really sad, since whiteboard moved from native to web became unusable |
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Opinion: Outlook is unifying their code base across all platforms to make it easier to update, fix bugs, add value, etc. The common UI stack across all supported platforms is web, not WinUI. That said, there's an argument to potentially use something else that spits out native integrations for each platform, but I don't think there's anything mature enough to rely upon in that area. |
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@riverar , opinion: I agree with yours, but now we see sacrifice of stability, features, UX and design over faster to the market. For a key product of a multi-billion dollar company that is just pathetic. MS thrived while supporting Office for Mac and Windows independently, and all of a sudden they go to the web. Why? To support 1% of Linux users who would not use Office anyway? Investing in WinUI 3 and supporting platforms like Uno would make much more sense. Client Blazor relies a lot on WASM and there is no reason not to follow Uno's approach and make WinUI 3 available on the web via WASM. |
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Faster to market? Why? Is there any competition out there for Outlook? It's just the a very sad state (for us technical minded people) but end users dont seem to care anymore. The only complaint if any is that you have to use the cloud. And comparing WinUI or Web will not make a difference when coming from Win32. Everything is now a monster memory and performance wise. |
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What is the status of open sourcing the Windows App SDK? Seriously, there needs to be an answer to this question. Every month that passes without it being open source is another month of community effort wasted. Rumors are popping up that WinUI / WinAppSdk is dead. I doubt that this is true but if you don't properly communicate what is going on and what happens when, this is what you get. |
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Tagging @dotMorten who can maybe speak to his comments directly. |
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I was being a bit silly in that post (as the tweet said I meant to write something else but let auto complete have some fun). It’s not dead. What I mean to say is we’re not seeing the resources on WinUI that it deserves. It appears heavily understaffed. Just look at the web Authenticator issue - It’s a non stop list of comments from people asking for an update to the issue, and it's severely impacting .NET MAUI. |
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The Visual Studio team just revealed their engineering size in a blog post. They have 26 Software Developer and 6 Produkt Managers and one technical writer in their Team that is only working on the Editor Component of Visual Studio. And WinAppSDK barely fixed the hyperlink click bug in the RichEditText after reported/confirmed two years ago. Please reveal your team size. |
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"its frustrating to see all these resources poured into making Windows great for developers like DevDrive, terminal, devhome etc but no one stops to think what message the WinAppSDK is sending to the same developers" Come on, if you aren't blind you see the business idea behind that. They need all the source code they can get their fingers on to train an AI that does all the development work (on their proprietary servers) and sell this lot of money on API calls. There are alternatives for Visual Studio but there wont be for the AI because our governments are bribed or blind and sleeping on the AI train. But there is absolute no business model for a GUI toolkit. Why you think that Qt was sold for less then 30 million dollar? Sad is that even Qt is not an option, because not only does it look bad and is now only focused on embedded devices, for better Ink Controls, Touch and Fluid Design we need the core OS/Driver integration to make this experience smooth. I hope one day the government understands and splits Microsoft and Amazon, maybe all of the FAANGs. |
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By this logic, Asp.Net and .Net are also not needed, but Microsoft is investing huge resources in them. Frameworks are needed as a key part of the ecosystem, which is sold as a whole, in one package and not in one product. The only problem is that today all of .Net is dedicated to the web, but this team sits in the corner and does not participate in the party.
That would be good for IT industry, but bad for America, so it won't happen soon. |
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I have accepted the fact that the there is no XAML designer and that there won't be one for several years. I have also accepted the fact that the C++ tooling to write WinAppSdk apps is severely lacking. But what really gets to me is that bugs that we open are just going nowhere. The SwapChainPanel is broken since WinAppSdk 1.2 as described here. I have been waiting for a fix for this for more than 6 months. While some effort was made, there are still problems. Unfortunately no one seems to care. I'm still stuck on WinAppSdk 1.1.5 due to that bug which is why I really need someone to look into this and respond. |
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Opinion: Microsoft maintains public and private repositories for WinUI, WinAppSdk, etc. The public repository, on GitHub, is not critical to the team's workflow nor their primary work surface so it's naturally prone to neglect. I suspect there are a number of other issues compounding matters, such as not having time/resources to address any external bugs, all hands on deck for the File Explorer customer, sinking morale due to key employee departures + unhappy customers (us), and upper management pressure to deliver something that smells like AI. To Microsoft: You still have an open offer from me to help clean up the repository. |
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Yeah, i would also help (for a salery and if 100% online work is accepted) with bug fixing? Are you hiring Microsoft ? |
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From the rumblings I've heard from insiders, WinUI is effectively dead. The bigger problem for Microsoft these days is the xOS juggernaut (macOS, iOS, tvOS, watchOS, visionOS, etc.). Apple has so outpaced Microsoft, Windows itself has become a losing proposition and will collapse as a viable product within a few years. |
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Desktop Windows isn't going anywhere. I'd say ChromeOS/Android is a bigger threat, or maybe iPadOS. Native Windows development is a different story and the web is the future of Windows apps, however bleak it is. Microsoft seems to be okay with Windows being on the back burner and likely doesn't want to compete with Apple |
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It is utterly strange - Apple is investing all-in in native apps. SwiftUI gets major updates every half-year and more and more devs are shifting to macOS. They then build more apps for iOS/watchOS/etc. They are pulling market share from Microsoft and Microsoft remains un-concerned. Are they no longer a OS company ? Do they only care about cloud subscription revenue now ? But that is a losing game in the long term as after the base rots way, there is nothing to distinguish them from the hundreds of cloud companies out there. |
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When will be the next WinUI Community Call? |
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@chigy maybe could give some info |
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@pubtom , @JanRajnoha , we are planning on next call on 9/27. We will start a new community call thread soon. |
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Here's my last attempt at trying to salvage Windows as a viable platform. UWP was the correct path forward. It only needed five fixes.
Lastly, WinUI and MAUI are both a disaster. I for one will not look at Windows again until UWP is brought back. Which probably means never given how little Microsoft pays attention to its most loyal developers. This is coming from a long time Windows fanboy, loyalist and advocate. ALL my development now revolves around Apple tech. The most recent release of SwiftUI has brought it to parity with the things I liked about UWP. What was once a significant lead for UWP has been reduced to parity. Microsoft still has the best IDE (Visual Studio), and the most efficient programming language (C#), but the repeated lapses toward self-destruction within the organization makes those looking outside in think the company has a death wish. Unfortunately for the Windows/Intel/PC Vendors eco system, Apple's vertical and horizontal integration is turning into a Mount Everest of tech. Microsoft is not solely to blame for Windows demise. Enterprise customers have had too much financial sway and influence over the company. Intel, because they had Apple on their silicon, stayed too neutral and stopped investing in Windows. Next year, PC sales will collapse if there isn't a major shift by Microsoft/Intel. It will be a very quick end to the Windows PC business. Accept that mistakes were made. Bring back UWP, and stop the madness. Also, stop listening to your enterprise customers. They do not innovate, they merely follow trends. Oh, and if Microsoft thinks their cloud initiatives will save the day, with Apple in control of the entire consumer space, they will eventually wipe out all of Microsoft's enterprise business as they too switch away from Microsoft/Intel. AI, unless it can start creating hardware/software that is superior to what Apple has on offer will be too little, too late. |
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Apple is nice and some businesses (creative agencies and tech) do use them but Apple has even much less respect for their customers and their product management will never fit into the large parts corporate or government workspace. Also they offer zero choice of customization, which makes it impossible. They are in their business actions till pure home use/lifestyle. Nadella is a cloud guy and now cloud will get even stronger. No AI models from MS will ever run locally in custom apps (unless we will have a giant step forward). And they with "npm" and "github" are already at cartel like levels of monopolization. There is no money reason for MS to change their current successfull path. |
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On the contrary. The MS strategy is indeed to move everything to cloud and web, but native apps are still a big market and alienating developers from their platform is also a good trigger to make them go to Amazon and Google, and not to Azure. One of Azure's strengths is the integration with on-premises MS technologies and easy migration. Have no people develop for Windows, and you can find yourself that no one wants to use Azure SQL Database. |
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Nobody said they should close the cloud business. |
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Always hard to find the next one: |
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and others
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Please join us for the June 2023 edition of the WinUI Community Call. This event will be live-streamed to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/4CzUfD1YL8A
Details
Date: June 21, 2023
Time: 16:00-17:00 UTC (9:00-10:00am Pacific)
Anyone and everyone is welcome - no pre-registration is required.
This will be an informal interactive live stream directly with members of our engineering team.
Format
The community call is a call among the WinUI team that is live-streamed onto YouTube. We present on new updates, share information, welcome guests, and answer your questions.
Agenda
Q&A Code of Conduct
Leave us your questions in the comments on this issue or live in the YouTube chat during the stream!
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