Universal Windows Platform
| A component of Microsoft Windows | |
|---|---|
| Details | |
| Type | Application programming interface |
| Included with | Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows 10 IoT, Xbox One, Windows Holographic |
| Replaces | Windows Runtime |
| Support status | |
| Current | |
| Related components | |
| Windows Store, Windows API | |
Universal Windows Platform (UWP), is a platform-homogeneous application architecture created by Microsoft and first introduced in Windows 10. The purpose of this software platform is to help develop universal apps that run on both Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile without the need to be re-written for each. It supports Windows app development using C++, C#, VB.NET, or XAML. The API is implemented in C++, and supported in C++, VB.NET, C#, F# and JavaScript. Designed as an extension to the Windows Runtime platform first introduced in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8, UWP allows developers to create apps that will potentially run on multiple types of devices.
UWP is a part of Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. UWP apps do not run on earlier Windows versions.
Apps that are capable of implementing this platform are natively developed using Visual Studio 2015. Older Metro-style apps for Windows 8.1, Windows Phone 8.1 or for both (universal 8.1) need modifications to migrate to UWP.
During the 2015 Build keynote, Microsoft announced a collection of UWP "bridges" to allow Android and iOS apps to be ported to Windows 10 Mobile. Windows Bridge for Android (codenamed "Astoria") would allow for Android apps written in Java or C++ to be ported to Windows 10 Mobile and published to Windows Store. Kevin Gallo, technical lead of Windows Developer Platform, explained that the layer contained some limitations: Google Mobile Services and certain core APIs are not available, and apps that have "deep integration into background tasks", such as messaging software, would not run well in this environment. Windows Bridge for iOS (codenamed "Islandwood") is an open-source middleware toolkit that allows iOS apps developed in Objective-C to be ported to Windows 10 Mobile by using Visual Studio 2015 to convert the Xcode project into a Visual Studio project. An early build of Windows Bridge for iOS was released as open-source software under the MIT license on 6 August 2015, while the Android version is in closed beta.
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