- We're back for another exciting episode of Ask Dan,
and don't adjust your sets I am this dark,
after all I was in Mexico for a week and that's what
happens to me.
But this week we'll be talking about Project Andromeda.
And some more information there including will it support
Continuum and run 132 apps and what about progressive
web applications?
Should you invest in that or stick with UWP?
Stay tuned. (funky music)
Do you think the rumored Andromeda device will be able to
replace PC's for some consumers?
Alright so this week we have a lot of questions regarding
Project Andromeda and if you haven't been following our
coverage this is a project Microsoft is working on.
It's slated to come out later this year.
And in fact it may come out a little bit earlier.
But we'll talk about more of that in a couple weeks.
Now if you don't know, Andromeda is a foldable device.
It is basically Courier for 2018.
Now some people referring to this as Surface phone,
well it can make phone calls that is not how Microsoft
is going to position this.
This is literally a new category of device.
It is a digital journal PC that fits in your pocket
that can fold out, act as a tablet.
Yes you can flip it around and use it as a phone too,
or you can use it in conjunction with your current phone
from Android or IOS.
Now the question is can it replace a PC for some users?
It's kind of a weird question and the reason I say that is
because the smart phone has replaced the PC for a lot of
people.
So if you have an Android or an iPhone for some people
that is good enough.
And if that's the case, well that could be the case here
as well.
Now the bigger question is will it support Continuum?
That is will you be able to plug in a PC monitor
and an external keyboard and mouse and use it that way?
And yes we are hearing it will support that but like a lot
of things probably not on day one.
Don't forget this is a new platform.
It is gonna be running a new version of Windows
called Windows Core OS.
It's gonna have new hardware.
So not everything will be there on day one.
This is again a long term project.
You have to think it's going to be going out for a couple
years.
We're hearing other OEMs are gonna be on board with this
as well in 2018 including Dell and probably HP.
So that means yes, you probably will be able to plug this
into a PC monitor and use it as a computer.
And that Snapdragon 845 from Qualcomm we're hearing
is very powerful.
New benchmarks came out this week showing it has very
powerful graphics abilities.
That's gonna be super interesting.
So for some people yeah, this could probably replace as
a PC but I don't think Microsoft will position it
that way.
After all it's gonna be up to the user and what you can
accept.
Should I continue to develop apps for the
Universal Windows Platform or just go with PWAs?
I.E. is Microsoft going to bail on UWP?
Alright so this is a real fascinating question.
Now the Universal Windows Platform or UWP is not going away.
In fact with Windows Core OS coming out in 2018
and 2019 Microsoft is doubling down on this concept
and it's gonna be throughout Windows.
So as a developer should you make a native UWP or just go in
with a progressive web app?
Now for those of you who don't know what a PWA is
it is a new technology coming online in 2018.
It's being pushed by Google but Microsoft is on board
with it as well.
And it uses the web as an application.
Now we've heard this before but it's a little bit
different this time due to a thing called
service workers.
So these allow websites to behave more like apps.
For instance they can perform offline,
including cash and material so you can use it when you're
not connected to the internet.
You can also receive notifications just like an app.
If you wanna see a concrete example of this,
whether you're on Android or if you're on Redstone 4
with Windows 10 go to mobile.twitter.com
and you can see an example of what's called Twitter light.
It'll download a little application for you
and you'll see how you can use the web browser
as a Twitter application.
And especially on Android you really cannot tell your
running a web browser.
It's really fascinating.
But you'll still get notifications coming in through
the notification drawer.
If you're on Windows 10 it'll come into the action center.
And it's very cool stuff.
So the question is why would you do that instead of
UWP or vice versa?
Well Microsoft would actually tell you do both of them.
That is you could take a PWA and mix it with a UWP system,
put it into the store and get the benefit of both worlds.
That is you'll get things like LiveTiles, Cortana support,
and better notifications.
In fact Microsoft recently announced that they're gonna be
taking websites that are configured for a PWA
and putting them automatically into the store.
Now that's gonna be a really cool thing.
Developers won't even need to do this and Microsoft will do
it for them on their own.
That'll boost the store and I tell you,
when you go try PWAs they're actually very impressive.
At least for most things.
Now the question is what happens with the UWP here
that is native applications?
Microsoft thinks these are bridges.
They're supposed to get developers into the store to see
how they perform and if they like it or they need more
features they can create a native UWP app.
Now the benefit of PWA is it's cheap.
You design once and you can run across all devices
and all platforms.
But if you want to go more deep and write a real
sophisticated application well you can do that with UWP.
So that's my suggestion, go with PWA, mix it with UWP,
put it in the store.
If it performs well and you have the budget create
a native UWP app later on.
Do you think that Project Andromeda device will run
Win32 or X86 applications with emulation to run on ARM?
Okay, so another question regarding Andromeda.
That foldable device coming out later this year from
Microsoft.
And this is a real interesting one.
And we're hearing again some mixed things here.
Yes it will be able to run Win32 applications,
Centennial apps and even through emulation.
But it probably won't be there on day one.
That doesn't necessarily mean it won't be there for day one
for consumers.
That's what we're hearing some rumors that there maybe
a developer edition coming out earlier.
But don't quote me on that just yet.
But yes that is Microsoft's goal here.
And there'll be different types of emulation including the
ability to run regular Windows 32 applications that aren't
in the store.
But that'll probably be done through apps streaming on the
web and then local emulation later on.
Microsoft has a lot of plans for this but it will take
a couple builds including Redstone 5 and Redstone 6
to get there.
But overall this is Windows Core OS and is the long term
play for Microsoft.
But they don't wanna completely abandon Windows 32 support
either.
They're just gonna make it a little trickier for it to
happen in the operating system.
But this will be kind of seamless for the end user.
So do expect some support there.
We do also expect you'll be able to run these applications
directly on the device and not through a Continuum situation
and that should be really interesting as well.
But like all things this is still pretty early on.
We've gotta wait a few months before we hear more from
Microsoft on exactly what this can and cannot do.
That is what we are hearing so far.
So that does it for this week's episode.
Remember if you have a question use #AskDanWindows on
Twitter or go to our forums at windowscentral.com
and ask me there.
If you want more interactive experience join us every
Friday at mixer.com/windowscentral at 2:30 p.m. eastern
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There you can ask us questions live after the podcast
and we always have a really good time.
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Thanks for watching, take care everybody.
(beep) #AskDan Windows on Twitter,
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and ask me a question there.
And if you liked this no, (bleep) I'm all screwed up now.
I'm falling into a routine, hold on, breather.
- [Producer] Should we just use the first one then?
I don't know, you got this. - I can do it.
It's not gonna be hard.