The (Proper) WinRT Speculation Thread

@Bass:

yeah! who says the law should be equal for everyone! oh wait...

It's very likely anything Microsoft does will be more legally scrutinized because of their history. Just recently Microsoft had direct government overseers to ensure Microsoft's pre-release software is in compliance with the law and the terms of anti-trust settlement. No other corporation that I know of has anything like that, not since AT&T at least.

I wonder if one will be able to write traditional windowed desktop apps using WinRT? The block diagram from the keynote would seem to indicate "no".

On the flipside, are all apps eventually (we're talking long term Windows 9-10+ here) expected to be full screen "Metro Style" apps built on WinRT, even if they have a decidedly non-Metro UI, with lots of toolbars/ribbons and panes?

30 minutes ago,Bass wrote

It's very likely anything Microsoft does will be more legally scrutinized because of their history. Just recently Microsoft had direct government overseers to ensure Microsoft's pre-release software is in compliance with the law and the terms of anti-trust settlement. No other corporation that I know of has anything like that, not since AT&T at least.

That's not because of history. It's because Microsoft is still in a position to have monopoly power, which you earlier claimed Microsoft no longer has.

I don't think so, but anything is possible. For instance, Apple went from close to bankruptcy to the #1 company in the world by market capitalization in something like 10 years.

My understanding of WinRT is that it abstracts away the most of the OS.

@DCMonkey: The abstract for What's new in .NET Framework 4.5 mentions

'The next major release of the .NET Framework, .NET 4.5, allows you to easily use Windows 8 technologies, like Windows Runtime, directly from .NET 4.5'

So I would hope yes.

9 minutes ago,Bass wrote

I don't think so, but anything is possible. For instance, Apple went from close to bankruptcy to the #1 company in the world by market capitalization in something like 10 years.

If anything is possible, Apple could be on the verge of bankruptcy again in another 10 years. People are fickle when it comes to gadgets. Nokia and Motorola are well aware of this.

5 minutes ago,cbae wrote

*snip*

If anything is possible, Apple could be on the verge of bankruptcy again in another 10 years. People are fickle when it comes to gadgets. Nokia and Motorola are well aware of this.

Or Microsoft could be on the verge of bankruptcy in 10 years. Which one do you think I believe is more plausible?

13 seconds ago,Bass wrote

*snip*

Or Microsoft could be on the verge of bankruptcy in 10 years. Which one do you think I believe is more plausible?

Plausibility and hope are two different things. 

What if you want to use this new framework, but you dont want to conform to Metro? This UI system is capable of so much, and I can think of cases where this "immersive" UI is appropriate, but Metro isnt. If you want to use the HTML/JS approach, is it easy to bend things so you get more freedom?

@W3bbo:

its just xaml/html so i guess we can do whatever for games and stuff like that you'll probably want to branch out a little bit. there are some very interesting sounding sessions about directx too that im going to check out

33 minutes ago,blowdart wrote

The WinRT documentation is up.

"The Windows Runtime packs core functionality for building Metro style apps into a small API surface. Your Metro style apps can also use the subset of traditional Win32, Component Object Model (COM), and .NET Framework APIs that is included in the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Metro style Apps."

"In some cases, a type that you used in a .NET Framework application does not exist within the .NET APIs for Metro style apps; instead, you must use a type from the Windows Runtime."

"By default, Metro style apps cannot access user data or system resources in a way that may compromise a user's privacy or the reliability of the system."

So it's like another Silverlight, living its separated hermit life. Somebody tell me how I should feel about that. 

they've got an article talking about the .net/silverlight story in the docs

pretty interesting.

it deffinatly looks like the WinRT xaml stack will be the stack for windows phone in the future..

@RoyalSchrubber:

i think i can be pretty cool, silverlight had focus areas that arent really needed for the deskop:smalldownload size, cross platform considerations, but for winRT you want to max out the utilization of the hardware

i think silverlight and willl phase out and be replaced with winRT, but its all xaml so its not a huge jump.wpf willprobably stillbearound for though heavy applications like VS, but we'll see... perhaps even better would be if winRT encompases wpf functionality as well

Wondering how XNA fits in, there's Direct3D but unmanaged only.  But looks like XAML only for managed apps.  Declarative, retained-mode graphics for managed games, seriously?

So looks like if you want to make a graphics intensive game you have to write it in C going forward, seems sort of bizarre.

@CreamFilling512:

xaml is not for managed apps any more though.. native xaml apps have been spotted

i think we'll see more in the day2 keynote