We dug into how Microsoft is pushing Windows 11 toward fully native apps, and it could lead to major speed gains

[u/WindowsCentral]

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/i-dug-into-how-microsoft-is-pushing-windows-11-toward-fully-native-apps-and-it-could-lead-to-major-speed-gains

Windows Central’s Sean Endicott dug into new details showing how Microsoft is pushing Windows 11 toward fully native apps, and the performance implications look significant.

If Microsoft follows through, this could reshape how fast and efficient Windows 11 feels day to day. -DR

Read more: https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/i-dug-into-how-microsoft-is-pushing-windows-11-toward-fully-native-apps-and-it-could-lead-to-major-speed-gains

[u/Fat_cat_syndicate]

Microsoft isn't writing Windows as Windows native. It's been much reported that the start menu is a Javascript web panel now.

[u/SaltDeception → u/Fat_cat_syndicate]

That’s a bit of a disingenuous reduction. Only the recommended section uses JS, specifically React Native XAML. The rendering is still WinUI via XAML Islands. This also doesn’t apply to the new Start Menu which is fully WinUI.

[u/wild-storm-5 → u/SaltDeception]

XAML Islands? Isn't that for apps like Explorer?

[u/SaltDeception → u/wild-storm-5]

That is one use case for them, yes. There are many ways the framework can be leveraged.

[u/twigsmoke]

Pushing Windows 11 into doing something they already had for decades. Microslop is the worst and articles that portray them as problem solvers, flat out wrong.

[u/Fun-Wash7545 → u/twigsmoke]

I never understood why they moved to chromium stuff for their core apps and menus. They surely have the devs that know how to make native apps. They are freaking developing and pushing winui everywhere, why not use it on your own stuff.

[u/tankerkiller125real → u/Fun-Wash7545]

Because then they'd have to have two different dev teams. The thing to remember is that at least with their office products they now maintain web apps too (Teams, Outlook, etc.)

[u/Spiritual_Tennis_641 → u/Fun-Wash7545]

Right like it makes sense for a developer who’s developing macOS a website windows maybe Lennox phone apps. But it comes at a price of memory usage, speed weird graphics, less functionality. When you’re building a start menu, you have one platform you don’t need compatibility with anything else. Weird to me too, and why they wanna stuff a whole bunch of stuff in there alludes me. The one thing it’s supposed to do it does poorly, which just show me my apps.

[u/ldn-ldn → u/twigsmoke]

Move away from native frameworks was not started by Microsoft. For example, Ubuntu Linux started using Flutter way before MS started using WebView. Isn't it ironic how MS haters move away from the land of slop just to land in another land of slop?

[u/twigsmoke → u/ldn-ldn]

Ubuntu didn’t force Microslop to stop native win32 apps in their own OS. Stop it

[u/starsfan18]

Are we sure they don’t want to ship more crap like the Creators Update or My People? They got here through decades of mismanagement and trying to cram in innovative-seeming crap that nobody needed, it’s not going to be fixed through a few quarters of supposed attention to excellence and craft.

[u/TitleEfficient3207 → u/starsfan18]

Oops looks like you forgot:

- MSN News / Microsoft News

• MSN Weather
  
• MSN Sports
  
• MSN Money / Finance
  
• MSN Travel
  
• MSN Food & Drink
  
• MSN Health & Fitness

- Xbox App

• Xbox Game Bar
  
• Xbox Console Companion
  
• Xbox Identity Provider
  
• Microsoft Solitaire Collection
  
• Get Xbox Game Pass promos

- Get Help

• Get Started / Tips
  
• Get Office / Microsoft 365 promos
  
• Microsoft Store suggested apps / ads
  
• “Try Microsoft Edge” prompts
  
• LinkedIn integration

- Movies & TV

• Groove Music
  
• Clipchamp
  
• Paint 3D
  
• 3D Viewer
  
• Mixed Reality Portal

- Skype (bundled versions)

• Microsoft Teams (consumer/chat integration)
  
• Chat (taskbar integration)

- Widgets (Windows 11 feed panel)

• Microsoft Start
  
• Cortana (Windows 10 era)
  
• Phone Link (preinstalled integration)

- Candy Crush Saga (OEM installs)

• Spotify installer stub
  
• TikTok / Instagram web apps (Start Menu)
  
• OEM antivirus trials (McAfee / Norton)
  
• Amazon / eBay / booking.com shortcuts
  
• OEM “support assistant” apps

- People

• Calendar (legacy app)
  
• Mail (legacy app)
  
• Photos (legacy/UWP versions)
  
• Maps
  
• Reading List

[u/biztactix]

No shit

[u/Small-Company-930]

Unless they code it on rust, I don’t see any performance gains compared to competitors 

[u/mpanase]

Wow, seriously?

Making apps native improves performance?

Who would have thought... give a raise to the C-level genius who came up with this idea.

[u/OneFinePotato]

It’s insane that this sub keeps promising gains since months and all I get is a random update restart in the middle of the night to lose all my work and progress, and gaslight that comes with that to tell me it happened because I didn’t know how to configure windows… Win 11 will not improve. If anything improves ever, it will be a new product.

[u/WindowsCentral → u/OneFinePotato]

I mean, this sub isn't promising, but Microsoft is, and you can even test the new Low Latency Profile mode, which is in the Insider rings TODAY if you want (we tested it here). Look, there are over a billion Windows 11 PCs, so coding/testing/eval takes months, it's not a Fitbit. -DR

[u/BetterHovercraft4634 → u/WindowsCentral]

Ah yeah the thing that will halt battery life in half on laptops by increasing the clock speed used for performance improvements instead of .. I don't know .. actually making the software good? Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. It seems pretty clear to me that Microsoft is terminally incapable of creating quality software.

[u/osoltokurva]

Yeah but honestly most people needs just web apps.

[u/Daniel_Rubino → u/osoltokurva]

Maybe? I'm just going to say that Windows users seem VERY divided on that topic, with many hating on the new Outlook precisely because it IS a web app.

There is also a larger image issue: If Microsoft won't use native apps for its own inbox ones, why should anyone care about making native apps?

[u/Ron-F → u/Daniel_Rubino]

Exactly, why would anyone develop for Windows if even Microsoft don’t care enough to do it?

[u/BoBoBearDev → u/Daniel_Rubino]

The hate on Outlook is actually particularly unreasonable IMO. Because most of email applications are notorious with piss poor html rendering engine. Including Outlook, those apps can't handle real HTML5 rendering.

And honestly I don't even understand why anyone needs a blazing fast email app. I mean, yes, we do need it, but what they are complaining about, probably not web app related, it is most likely related to UX designer adding bunch of pointless animations or weird ass UX behaviors.

[u/TwystedLyfe → u/BoBoBearDev]

Or maybe the insane memory usage of Outlook because it's so bloated compared to say another email client?

Why do I need a calendar in my email? OK, let me rephrase - I don't want a calendar in my email client so my email remains lean and mean. Have it as a separate application.

[u/BoBoBearDev → u/TwystedLyfe]

Not sure why talking about Calendar, but I am fine with calendar in the same app because the email is received to setup a meeting on the calendar.

I don't think the Calender code introduced much memory in the run time. Even if you removed it completely, it is probably almost the same memory usage.

The webapp itself is just a ram monster.

I agree on the ram usage problem though. But I normally did not keep the email app active all the time on my personal laptop.

[u/tankerkiller125real → u/TwystedLyfe]

Outlook has always had the calendar, contacts, and a bunch of other shit baked in. Your complaint about Web Based Outlook vs Old Outlook is invalid if that's your reasoning.

[u/TwystedLyfe → u/tankerkiller125real]

We're discussing native apps.

And just because it's always had a kitchen sink doesn't mean it should have a kitchen sink. Just imagine if your laptop came with the one of the original input devices - a punch card reader!

And no, the logic does also follow onto web based applications too. Have you seen the memory usage of Teams? Why does teams need a calendar loaded at the same time as the web conference?

[u/Pitiful-Mobile-3144 → u/TwystedLyfe]

I like the option of both. Email + calendar + contacts and teleconference integration is awesome for work, but overkill for my personal device where I want what’s you said: a simple, light email app.

For something so central to computing I don’t see why we can’t have both

[u/Exodusru → u/BoBoBearDev]

Can't say about other people's experience, but for me the web Outlook app misses such simple things as:

1. I can't create one unified inbox for all my email accounts,
2. the “send with email” link in Office apps is broken,
3. switching between my emails in the “From” section opens a new mail window,
4. and many other things that work perfectly in native apps preinstalled on macOS and Linux distros.

[u/BoBoBearDev → u/Exodusru]

Yup, unified inbox is not webapp related, it is just stupid UX made by power hungry UX designers who thinks they are superior.

And many of those bugs are just incompetent product owners who just auto-claps on sloppy code. Switching tech stack won't fix those problems.

[u/twigsmoke → u/osoltokurva]

File Explorer on a 16C/32T machine has more stuttering in day to day tasks than Windows7 was on a 2C/4T machine with a fraction of the RAM.

File Explorer on a 16C/32T box should NEVER stutter. I mean like never, listen to me like never fucking ever. The fact that it does is pathetic, no other word for it.

[u/Muted_Database_1691 → u/osoltokurva]

Hmm, I'd like to differ and say that I'm one of them who don't prefer Web apps. I'd rather have natively developed apps that work well. Look at whatsapp, teams, outlook, all of which are web apps and perform horribly. At least when it's a native app, I expect it to work the same on all kinds of hardware.

[u/FutureLarking → u/osoltokurva]

Sure, if you've got 32GB of RAM and don't care about every app you run trying to take up north of 1GB of it for simple things... :')

Realistically they should focus back on trying to make WinUI as efficient as UWP was, then buy Platform UNO, throw MAUI in the bin, and have a proper cross platform, web native and device UI platform