Lots of speculation lately about what a Microsoft Band 3 might look like, and whether or not it will run some flavor of Windows 10, such as IoT Core.
Me, I’m skeptical. I don’t think MS Band should run any version of Windows, because it’s a purpose-driven device that needs to focus first and foremost on performance and power consumption.
But…I could be wrong. Maybe MS wants to extend the UWP app promise to another category of hardware. Maybe they want to brag about another class of device running Windows 10?
So let’s speculate!
Do you think MS Band 3 will:
[ul]Run Windows 10 (IoT Core, or some other to-be-named subset)?
Run NETMF (or Llilum), as some have suggested in response to my tweets throwing shade on Win10 for Band?
Continue to run a custom firmware built with native code?[/ul]
My guess is the latter, at least for now. I just can’t see how you’d manage, with current battery technology, to pull off something as small and sleek as the current Band hardware, while still supporting a larger OS footprint (plus apps, potentially), and have anything remotely like good battery life.
I definitely don’t see anything that small running Windows IoT Core anytime soon. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it support UWP apps.
However, all I really want is a better band option for my Band… [em][sits here sulking while looking at wrist wondering when my Band2 will return from Microsoft with a new band][/em]
Oh, and let’s not forget I’d like for them to fix step counting…
How would that work, exactly? Wouldn’t you, by definition, need an OS to support UWP? I mean, I guess they could re-implement the entire UWP API without any of the Windows plumbing that supports it, but that seems like a pretty major task to me. I don’t have a clue how many Band 2 devices have been sold, but I’m betting that it can’t be a bigger number than the number of Windows 10 Mobile devices sold. So how much effort do you put in to support UWP for that class of device?
Not saying it couldn’t happen, but I’m not holding my breath for UWP as a feature separate from them releasing a device that supports IoT Core.
There’s certainly something to be said for further reducing platform fragmentation for devs, but the cost in this case is too high, IMO.
@ devhammer - maybe I’m over simplifying UWP… But, to me its more about the Visual Studio solution than than it is a device side solution. If they can muster up a compiler solution that just makes Band a target device then maybe not a ton required on the other end. Essentially, this is what I imagine happening with LLILUM.
That being said, I didn’t really mean to imply that I actually see them going either route and making either UWP or IoT Core available. I just meant that I think UWP is probably more likely than IoT Core. IoT Core on Band would be a huge shift from native hardware compiled firmware to a full blown OS. I just can’t see that happening on this tiny a device anytime in the next 5 years.
UWP would require an OS, or at least, would require a lot of the things that an OS provides. If the band didn’t run an OS, it’d be a major implementation to support UWP.
Me, my guess is it won’t run Win 10 (IoT or otherwise), it won’t run UWP apps, and it won’t run NETMF or Llilum.