Monday, October 3, 2016

What is Windows Device family?

Windows evolved from just windows to include 'phones'.

When Windows 8.1 was introduced Windows Runtime(WinRT) which was evolution of Windows app model came up with the Universal Windows 8 apps for both Windows and Windows Phone. Windows and Windows Phone shared a ccommon piece of code.

Universal Windows Platform was introduced beginning Windows 10. The target was no more the Windows OS or Windows Phone OS but a common platform with a unified core. This core runs on all devices in the Windows family.

Devices running this core can target can not only call WinRT APIs that are common to all devices but also Win32 and .NET APIs that are specific to device family. This means all you need to develop is a single app package that can be installed on a wide variety of devices shown here.

UWP_00.PNG

On any device, you have therefore, the guaranteed core and you add APIs on top of it specific to the device. You will conditionally access the device specific features in your code.

Here is the present line up of the device family.

UWP_01.PNG

Here is a Video from Microsoft's Channel 9 with additional information:



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