Should I target WP8 users while developing new app?

Question

We are planing to develop new app .It has VoIP feature and app is similar to whatsapp.

Since the app has Voip feature we have to go with WP8 silver light. Winrt for WP is not supporting VOIP api.

Can we guess almost all the WP8 devices are upgraded to WP8.1 ? If there are large user base still remains in WP8 we will develop the app using WP8 api's (Using VS2012). Otherwise we will go with WP8.1 api's (using VS2013).I heard there are few performance improvements and controls are available in WP8.1

Any suggestions on this ?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

All Lumia phones can be updated to WP8.1 and a huge part of users so did. Just an article for reference: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/02/nokia-lumia-windows-phone-8-1-update/ On my apps I use analytics to track users and I hardly see few users stuck with WP8.

Update - market share http://www.gsmarena.com/adduplex_wp81_market_share_surpasses_wp80-news-10062.php This article is from last October, WP8.1 has been out for about 5 months and it had already surpassed WP8. I let you think the actual quota...

Should you go with WinRT? It depends on your needs. Of course you should use at least WP8.1 Silveright (not WP8). But if your application does not require specific functions only available in WinRT, you might go with WP8.1 Silverlight, since WinRT has still many little performance issues.

Answer 2

There are a lot of new available APIs and features either for WP 8.1 Silverlight or WinRT. I would definitely target 8.1. Users still using WP 8.0 probably don't care that much about apps anyway.