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Should Developers Support Windows Phone 8?
Un pobre guey writes "Should you develop apps for Windows 8? Well, the hype and flogging are apparently in full swing. From the article: 'To be clear, Windows Phone 8 is not a slam dunk. Some, such as IDC, believe Windows Phone will eclipse iOS by 2016. Others, though, believe the trajectories of Android and iOS can't be slowed in the next few years. Nonetheless, I think a bet on Windows Phone 8 is justifiable, even wise, since anyone who purchases a new Windows Phone 8 device likely will want to load it with the latest and greatest apps.'"
Another reader points out that the full Windows Phone 8 SDK was leaked online recently, which led to some interesting discoveries: "For starters, it appears that the API is very much like the full WinRT API, but it has no JavaScript support. There is also no support for creating and working with Silverlight/XNA style. This is a bit surprising because I and most developers were under the impression that Microsoft would support the migration of Silverlight apps to HTML5 and JavaScript, but there isn't even support for JavaScript to access the phone's services. The best you can hope for is using the JavaScript support in IE10."
I don't know why developers never took to the platform -- there isn't a reason they shouldn't support it, and whether WP8 will change their minds remains to be seen.
I can think of two simple reasons:
1) There aren't many users.
2) Since WP7 didn't support C/C++ code, you can't just port your app and write a new GUI (like you can for iPhone and Android), you have to write the whole thing from scratch. Is that worth the effort? Probably not, because of 1.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What does that have to do with the fact that Android and iOS are vastly more popular than current generation Windows Phone for both users and developers? By breaking backwards compatibility with WP7 apps MS makes it easier to switch to a more popular OS.
Where are people getting this idea? Microsoft is automatically recompiling all WP7 apps to work with WP8 devices. No developer changes, submissions or work of any kind required. ALL WP7 apps will be fully compatible with WP8 on day 1.