Microsoft’s Universal Apps platform is intended to provide incentives for developers to push their apps to Windows 10 Mobile. The existence of well over 120 million Windows 10 users, with the goal of over a billion in the next few years, creates quite the market for apps. The hope for Microsoft, is that the incremental work required to make an app run on Windows 10 Mobile will be a smaller barrier than the need to create a new app from scratch for developers.
That’s the theory, and so far, we’ve definitely seen a number of developers introducing Universal Apps. Netflix (which hasn’t yet released on Windows 10 Mobile), AccuWeather, Pandora, PicsArt Studio, and NBC are a few of the companies releasing Universal Apps that will run on both Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. Indeed, even Bank of America, which left Windows Phone, has announced that they, too, are working on a Windows 10 app (without specifying that it’s a Universal App, that only stands to reason).
Now, American Express has made the leap. They followed the unusual path of releasing first on Windows 10 Mobile, and they complete their journey today with the release of a Windows 10 app for desktops. The app does all of the expected things, including:
- Pay your bills
- Enroll in AutoPay
- Enroll in Paperless Statements
- Keep track of recent activity
- Access [monthly billing] statements (past 6 months)
- View your FICO score
- Save with Amex Offers
- Watch your purchase increase your Rewards Program balance
Time will tell if mobile-specific developers like SnapChat will see the value in Universal Windows 10 Apps. It’s one thing for desktop developers to make the small investment in pushing their app to Windows 10 Mobile for a relatively small population of users. It’s another thing for a company to switch gears and invest in the Microsoft’s smartphone platform when access to the much larger installed base of Windows 10 users isn’t terribly relevant to them.
Nevertheless, progress is progress, no matter how small. We’ll continue to keep you updated on Microsoft’s progress with Universal Apps and leveraging their desktop market share to help drive apps to their smartphones.
(Via Windows Central)
