Targeting Windows Phone app for maximum devices

1
votes

Are following statements correct regarding Windows Phone app?

  1. Windows Phone Silverlight app targeting 8.0 will work on all Windows Phones running 8.0 and above. It will not work on Windows desktop and Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets.

  2. Windows Phone Silverlight app targeting 8.1 will only work on phones running Windows 8.1. It will not work on Windows desktop and Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets.

  3. Windows Phone app will work on all Windows Phones running 8.0 and above and Surface RT tablets. It will not work on Windows Desktop and Surface Pro.

  4. Windows Univeral app will work on all phones, tablets (Surface RT, Surface Pro) and desktop systems running Windows 8.0 or above.

2
silverlightwindows-phone-8windows-phonewindows-phone-8.1
re: #3: Windows Phone and Windows Store are separate platforms. No phone app will currently run under desktop/RT Windows (and no Windows app will work on Windows Phone). I should point out that any Windows RT app will work on desktop Windows - same platform as far as apps are concerned (with two target versions, 8.0 and 8.1). Though it is possible (though not common) for x86 Windows Store apps to not run on Windows RT if the developer enforces this (e.g. if a game needs more power than RT devices can provide). - pumpkinszwan

2 Answers

1
votes

As far as i know Windows Phone apps would never work on tablets where as Windows Store apps can be deployed.

According to your statements:

  1. Yes
  2. Yes
  3. Windows Phone apps (Target not specified, so assuming as WP 8) would work on Windows Phone devices which are 8 or above.
  4. Yes, Universal apps are where, the solution would contain both the Windows Store & Windows Phone projects as combined with a folder for the Shared Resources. These can be deployed on devices which have the target version of 8.1.
1
votes

Yes. Yes. No. No.

Maximum number of devices is hard to judge since there isn't a single definitive answer, and maximising devices by targeting older API means the app will not make use of newer features: Windows Phone Runtime apps are easy to port to Windows via Universal projects, but won't run on Windows Phone 8 devices. Windows Phone 8.0 apps will run on Windows Phone 8 devices but will be difficult to build for Windows. Windows Phone 7 apps miss many new features such as higher screen resolutions.

Windows Phone and Windows are separate (but related) OSes. Windows tablets run the same OS as Windows desktops (this is different from Android and iOS where Phone and Tablet share the OS). Windows RT runs a limited version of the desktop Windows OS.

Windows Phone apps do not run on Windows. Windows apps do not run on Windows Phone.

Windows Universal apps bridge the two and allow essentially the same source code to be built for either Windows or Windows Phone.

Windows Phone apps are upwards compatible: Windows Phone 7 apps run on Windows Phone 8 and 8.1. Windows Phone 8.0 apps run on Windows Phone 8.1.

Windows apps are upwards compatible: Windows 8 Store apps will run on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Windows 7 desktop apps will run on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1

Windows Phone 8 supports only Windows Phone Silverlight (8.0) apps. Windows Phone 8.1 supports Windows Phone Silverlight (8.0 & 8.1) and Windows Phone Store apps. Windows RT supports Windows Store apps (AnyCPU or arm) Windows 8 & 8.1 support Windows Store apps and Windows desktop apps. (AnyCPU, x86, or x64)

Windows Runtime apps are apps which use the Windows Runtime. On the Windows Phone they are called Windows Phone Store apps. On Windows they are called Windows Store apps.

Universal apps are a way to share source for Windows Runtime apps across different targets (both Windows Phone Store apps and Windows Store apps). They apps need to be compiled separately and except for very simple apps generally have some differences between the two. Typically the UI is different but the underlying app logic is the shared. From a development standpoint, a Universal app solution contains a Windows Phone project for phone specific code, a Windows project for Windows specific code, and a Shared project for shared code.

MSDN has more details at What's a Windows Runtime app? For more on differences between Windows Phone Runtime apps and Windows Phone Silverlight apps see Migrating your Windows Phone 8 app to a Windows Runtime XAML app