Dell Ad Says Windows 8.1 Apps Will Run On Xbox One 148
cold fjord writes "An article at DailyTech begins, 'While many people scoffed at or failed to recognized the significance of Microsoft Corp.'s talk of a "unified" development path for Windows, Xbox, and Windows Phone, the real world ramifications of that approach are now becoming clear — and they're significant. A pre-order page from Dell for the Xbox One "accidentally" (and, it appears, officially) revealed that Windows 8.1 apps will run on the Xbox.'"
A Microsoft spokesperson told AllThingsD, 'The suggestion that all Windows 8 apps run on Xbox One is not accurate," but they didn't deny that there would be some cross-compatibility. PCWorld's article has words of caution: "It would certainly be interesting if the full-blown Windows Store landed on Xbox One. But don't hold your breath for it to be there at the console's launch, no matter what Dell's words vaguely imply."
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't want to turn my expensive PC into a console.
And i don't want to turn my console into a half assed PC.
of course this is going to happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does anyone think it won't?
Metro apps will be portable to Xbox One. Because Xbox One runs a variant of Windows 8/Windows Phone 8. It won't be hard.
And MS will run the system as a trusted computing system meaning you can only get the apps from their app store. And thus they'll take 30%. And they'll have full approval over all the apps to be sold.
Why did anyone think MS wasn't planning to do this? It's good business sense.
It won't work because MS is MS (Score:3, Insightful)
A Unified development path? Oh please, if MS wanted one, they COULD have made ALL their games available for both their console AND windows AND their phones ALREADY! They don't because MS isn't a company it is a number of departments involved in century old feuds. I know MS isn't centuries old but there departments are sure feuding like their great-great-great grand-daddy's have done.
MS can't do a unified approach because it is not a unified company. Just examine its countless position changes on whether Windows is or is not a gaming platform. In a way MS is even killing itself with it. The only thing I would need windows for is gaming. No windows games? Then I could just as well run Linux or a Mac. In fact, I do run Linux because more and more games are available on Linux or at least Linux friendly.
And no, I don't own a x-box. But smart move MS, make your own platform less relevant. Oh wait, then there is Games for Windows. Oh then it is not. Why do you think Valve is going ahead with Steam OS? Because they like building a OS more then building games? No because they are fucking tired of being depended on a company that is schizophrenic about its own OS.
Re:finally (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Windows 8 = What were they thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the things that MS has going for it in the minds of many is that it is an OS for getting work done. The Metro stuff really breaks that perception to pieces. I love when I'm in desktop mode and I go to slide the mouse across the screen with the track pad and that pulls up the charm bar with time and date - and what I want is now under it and I need to click around to make it go away.
Or when I go to close a window that's been maximized on the desktop and barely overshoot the little x at the top right and now it's covered by the charms bar...
Search is supposed to replace the start menu - and I am all for that but the search is so poorly implemented. My laptop isn't capable of upgrading to 8.1 so maybe this gets fixed but on 8 it's really bad. If I start typing the word 'pad' - Wordpad does not show up in my search results. Crazy.
Having updates in two places - stupid. And it appears that some updates in the app store wont run until updates in windows update are done. I had two apps pending forever. Then I went over to windows update and found 1 important update that it said would be automatically installed - but it wasn't. I had to kick it off myself. As soon as it finished, the app updates that had been pending finally kicked in and completed. One was the Kindle app which would not open until it did update. It took me 15 minutes or so to figure out the magical order to get it all to work.
I've been using 8 for 2 or 3 weeks now on a brand new Samsung I bought for my wife. There are some nice things and there are a lot of very broken things and all of them scream to me that no one actually used this on a laptop. I can't imagine how they could have and not noticed how painful so much of the UI is. Want to uninstall an app from the home screen? Right click then move the mouse all the way down to the bottom left of the screen - just not too far to the bottom left.
Want to search the store? Open the charms bar. Now you will be tempted to start typing in the search bar. Don't - it defaults to searching what is already installed on your machine. You need to look at the list on the right and scroll down to store, select that and now you can search the store. It is not built into the store - it isn't obvious in any way that this is what you need to do. When in the store it just feels like search isn't possible.
I hear 8.1 fixes the install mess where installing software fills the home page with tons of shortcuts. Since I can't upgrade to it, since Samsung can't be bothered to make their stuff work with it, I don't know but I'd sure love it. Installing MS office left me with multiple columns of junk on my home screen. And I don't know what algorythm drives placing tiles on that screen - but it is insane and constantly fights me. I can rarely get tiles organized just like I would prefer - stuff slips around and leaves unpleasant gaps.
I'm hoping it will improve down the road. I like having multiple players in the OS market. I run Linux for the most part myself but for a number of situations and people in my life I need windows. I really have never been a fan of Apple's approach so I try to be patient with MS.
Re:finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally, Microsoft Word for your phone. They will blow Android out of the water.
The ONLY way anyone is blowing Android out of the water is if they provide a better product and give it away for free. Android isn't where it is because it's superior; it's there because manufacturers can use it for free.
Re:finally (Score:2, Insightful)
Finally, Microsoft Word for your phone. They will blow Android out of the water.
Office apps are already on the Windows Phone, at least enough functionality to make draft documents or edit documents. I'm not going to be typing lab reports with my thumbs. However, I have written short stories (4-5 pages), which the phone saves to SkyDrive and I open on my computer later.
I also made a budget in Excel on my computer. Later my wife and I couldn't remember how much we budgeted for shopping, so I opened the spreadsheet on my phone, and there it was.
Re:finally (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one here who still recognizes sarcasm?