How to Use Microsoft’s Project Rome for a Seamless Cross-Device Experience

Taking the ‘universal’ part of the Universal Windows Platform to the next level, Microsoft’s Project Rome focuses on having apps function continuously and harmoniously across devices. A new Microsoft tutorial shows how that might work for your app.

Microsoft is highlighting two key features of its Remote Systems API for the Windows Anniversary Update:

1) App experiences can move with the user so that users does not have to deal with any gap in functionality as they switch from one Windows device to another. Microsoft illustrates this with the example of a music app from its favorite fictional company, Contoso. A user could start listening to a song in the car, then transfer the song from her phone to a PC or Xbox after arriving home.

Developers can accomplish this by implementing the RemoteSystemWatcher class to discover other devices—via either WiFi/Bluetooth or the cloud—select the optimal transport method, and build a device list that users can select from. (Check out the blog post for links and code snippets that further explain the process.)

2) Messaging between connected devices allows for remote control of an app from another device. For example, the same user could control playback on her TV from her phone.

Microsoft contends both these features will help diminish the hassle of dealing with multiple devices, as our collections of connected hardware grow ever larger. They also describe these updates as relatively quick and easy to code. Let us know your experience using the Remote Systems API in the comments below.