At launch, Microsoft’s Bing Team had quite a few useful apps up and running for both Windows 8 and RT. Some of these apps included Weather, Sports, Travel, News and Maps.
These apps are the cornerstone of Windows 8/RT in many ways, and now the Bing team has spoken up a little about how these apps were put together in the official Windows 8 app developer blog. According to the post, Bing put its in-house app team together about a year ago now and all the apps were made using HTML/Java Script, except for Maps, which was built with XAML/C#.
Early on, Microsoft launched quite a few 1st apps and continues to do so even today with new apps like the Dynamic Business Analyzer app. The reason for this is simple, Microsoft wanted to do for these apps what the Surface did for Windows RT/8 tablet hardware– serve as a reference point for a what a good, quality Windows app looked like.
All Windows 8/RT apps made by Microsoft used every Windows Start UI feature possible, including snap view, the top navigation bar, command button bar, the Windows 8 charm and more.
Beyond just packing it full of features, the blog post also stressed how important having world ready apps were to Microsoft as well. Microsoft detailed a few of the components and steps that went into ensuring their apps worked well in all the regions they launched in. This included localization aspects, market customization, and more.
The piece is quite sizeable, but is certainly worth a read if you want an inside look of everything that went into the creation of this Microsoft apps. Reading the piece could be equally important if you are considering making your own Windows 8/RT apps and want to look towards Microsoft’s apps as an “showcase example” when it comes to features and abilities.
What do you think of Microsoft’s 1st party apps personally? Do you think they are great showcases of what Windows Start UI is capable of or not? Share your thoughts below.
SOURCE: Windows Developer Blog via Neowin
