CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#silverlightwindows-phone-8windows-runtimewindows-phone-8.1
Camilo Martinez
Camilo Martinez

Reputation: 1803

Platform to develop a new Windows phone 8 app: WinRT or Silverlight?

I'm starting the development of a new app from scratch, and I have been trying to decide between the forward-facing WinRT development or the already tested Silverlight approach.

The app will use mainly the location and local storage features which seems to be supported by both platforms.

My main concern is that on one side WinRT seems to be the approach that would be supported by Microsoft going forward and at some point Silverlight might be dropped. However as of October 2014 up to 37% of the devices are still running the 8.0 version supported only by the Silverlight approach. Also there seems to be more learning material available for Windows Phone 8 than for 8.1 and all of it assumes the Silverlight approach which although similar differs in some key features and namespaces with WinRT

I don't strongly need to support Windows Phone 8 although it still seems to be better in order to target most of users. There isn't so far a need to create a Windows 8 app so I don't count that as a benefit from using WinRT

So far I am leaning towards using WinRT because as I said going forward seems to be the platform that will receive most of the support, but right now it still feels being "on the bleeding edge"

Is there any strong preference to go with either development approach considering that the time to market is less than six months?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 324

Answers (2)

RashmiA-MSFT
RashmiA-MSFT

Reputation: 276

As noted in below blog, there are many advantages of developing universal apps. In addition to Windows phone, you can reuse the code to develop app for Windows devices. http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/09/30/universal-windows-apps-get-better-with-windows-10/

Upvotes: 0

Daniel Gary
Daniel Gary

Reputation: 507

WinRT is definitely the future for Windows development. Expect Microsoft to further combine Windows/Windows Phone in Windows 10. Silverlight 8.1 was a stop-gap solution to allow developers to easily port their apps to Windows Phone 8.1. I wouldn't expect to see a Silverlight 10.0.

Upvotes: 2

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