Microsoft has shared a host of announcements across platforms at its flagship event Microsoft Build 2022. Here are a few key updates from the event.
Windows 11
The tech major has announced new app-building tools for developers. It has updated two tools to help developers use its WinUI 3 to build their apps – the Visual Studio extension Template Studio for WinUI (C#) and the open-source tool NET Upgrade Assistant
The NET Upgrade Assistant will help developers automate the migration of .NET UWP apps to .NET 6, including updating from WinUI 2 to WinUI 3. For cross-platform app development, it has released a .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) 1.0 which will help developers build apps that can run on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows, from a shared codebase
Updates have been added for a Progressive Web App, which will enable developers to distribute and install their site like an app. New features like URL protocol handler registration and window controls to overlay for custom title bars, have also been enabled.
It has also announced support for third-party Widgets on Windows. Beginning later this year, developers will be able to build Widgets as companion experiences for their Win32 and PWA apps on Windows 11, powered by the Adaptive Cards platform.
It has also announced an upcoming refresh to OneNote with a visual overhaul.
“The new visual refresh extends to the navigation panes and full-screen mode. The page list, section tabs and notebook dropdown all have been visually updated,” it said in a blog post.
Microsoft Store
App marketplace Microsoft Store has also been updated.
The waitlist programme for Win32 applications in Microsoft Store has been removed, opening it up to all app developers. It has also announced the launch of Microsoft Store Ads. It will soon be piloting new developer tools.
“Using Microsoft Advertising, developers will be able to create, run and view ad campaigns in the Store, improving discoverability and conversion for apps,” it said.
Separately, the Amazon Appstore preview on Windows 11 is currently available in the US, and it will be expanding to five additional countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK by the year-end.
Further, it has introduced Windows Search for the store. Windows Insiders will soon be able to open Start, type the name of an app, view search results from Microsoft Store, and install it directly from there.
It will also be testing a new Restore Apps feature soon which will allow customers to automatically restore their apps, previously installed from the Microsoft Store, to their new Windows device.
It has also announced pop-up store and Microsoft Store badges to allow developers to promote apps on any website.
Project Volterra
Microsoft also announced Project Volterra, a new device powered by the Snapdragon compute platform.
“With Project Volterra you will be able to explore many AI scenarios via the new Qualcomm Neural Processing SDK for Windows toolkit announced today by Qualcomm Technologies,” it said in a post.
It will also be adding support for NPUs into the end-to-end Windows platform.
Teams and Microsoft 365
It also announced new capabilities for developers building collaborative apps for Teams and Microsoft 365.
This includes Live Share, which enables participants to co-watch, co-edit, and co-create, among other functions in Teams meetings. Developers can use new preview extensions to the Teams SDK to extend existing Teams apps and create Live Share experiences in meetings.
Developers will also be able to create Loop components., which are live, actionable units of productivity that stay in sync and move freely across Microsoft 365 apps, starting with Teams chat and Microsoft Outlook. Developers can evolve an existing Adaptive Card into a Loop component or create a new Adaptive Card-based Loop component.
Microsoft Graph chat APIs enable developers to embed Teams chats into their applications, enabling their users to collaborate seamlessly without having to switch back and forth across apps. We are introducing several new APIs in preview with capabilities such as enabling chats with federated users (like users outside your tenant), identifying which messages are read and unread by the current user, and subscribing to user chats and membership changes.
The SharePoint Frameworklets you create parts and pages in SharePoint sites, Teams apps, and more.
The new Teams SDK will enable developers to build apps for Teams, Outlook, and Office using a single application and deployment model and build collaborative apps that make use of capabilities relevant to each product.
Other announcements include in-app purchasing for Teams apps, Teams app license management, an app compliance automation tool for Microsoft 365 and improved app management and discoverability.
Microsoft Dev Box
It has also announced the Microsoft Dev Box, a new cloud service that provides developers with secure, ready-to-code developer workstations for hybrid teams of any size.
The service is meant to give developers self-service access to cloud-based workstations pre-configured and ready-to-code for specific projects.
Microsoft Power Platform
It has also announced the new Microsoft Power Platform product and capabilities across the platform.
Announcements include Power Pages for creating business websites, power apps express design to instantly turn images, docs, Figma design files, and PowerPoints into apps and Power Virtual Agents, Azure Bot Framework to build sophisticated conversational AI bots and Autoscale capability with hosted robotic process automation (RPA) bots for easier scaling with Microsoft Power Automate.
It has also announced Datamarts in Power BI to enable data self-sufficiency and Power Automate pay-as-you-go plan and updates to the embed software development kit (SDK).
Azure
Announcements related to Microsoft Azure include general availability of Azure Container Apps that will enable developers to run microservices and containerised applications on a serverless container platform.
In addition, several key enhancements have been made to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to aid the developer experience.
Azure Cosmos DB has introduced new features, including new burst capacity and elasticity features in preview. The Business Critical tier of Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance is also now generally available.
It has also introduced the new Azure Spring Apps Enterprise tier from Microsoft and VMware (GA).
Azure Spring Cloud is a fully managed service from Microsoft and VMware for running Spring apps at cloud scale, by removing the need to worry about infrastructure, application lifecycle, monitoring, container intricacies, and Kubernetes. Microsoft is renaming the service Azure Spring Apps, to reflect the expanded scope of the service as a platform for all types of Spring applications.
Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform
It also unveiled the new Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform. The cloud data platform helps developers create applications that include advanced analytics and intelligence – with built-in governance across all data assets on a “trusted, integrated” platform.
Developers will be able to connect their data to the cloud with the platform.
It has also announced new Azure SQL Database features in preview such as Azure Functions integration, JSON enhancements, and a local development experience.
Its Azure Synapse Link for SQL, now in preview, is meant to enable near real-time analytics for SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Database.
Another platform in preview is the Microsoft Graph Data Connect, which enables customers to export their Microsoft 365 data estate. It is only available on Microsoft Azure.
Separately, Azure Machine Learning now offers a Responsible AI dashboard in preview.
Published on
May 25, 2022
