Originally Posted by
Troy Tiscareno The problem is that "Universal Apps" really aren't that universal. There are lots of desktop apps that need lots of fine control and have many layers of menus (Photoshop, Video apps, 3D apps, etc.), and even apps like Excel that are strongly mouse-driven would need quite a bit of "reinterpreting" to be useful on mobile. Certainly simple apps make some sense, but for a whole lot of apps, the needs of the desktop and the needs of a small touch-based device are just so different that it really doesn't make that much sense. Plus, I have desktop apps that are several GB in size when installed - how are you going to deal with that on mobile?
I think the answer is: you aren't. "Universal Apps" will work for smaller, simple apps, but they won't bring a lot of more complex apps to mobile, because the work to make them compatible and efficient would be just as much as if they wrote a dedicated app in the first place - and if they aren't doing that already, then why bother to do with with a "Universal App" that almost no one will use on mobile? The market has already taught us that just because you build it doesn't mean that users (or developers) will come to your ecosystem. And developers aren't avoiding WinPhone because making the apps is too hard - they're avoiding it because making them simply isn't worth ANY level of effort - or having to support the app after launch. Without 100M or more users, devs aren't willing to invest their time that could be more profitably spent working on apps for iOS and Android.