Windows App SDK 1.6 Released
Windows App SDK 1.6 has been released by Microsoft, which is the set of APIs and tools to help create Windows desktop applications using C++ and Win32 or with C# and .NET that can leverage the modern controls and features of WinUI. Windows App SDK 1.6 includes some quality-of-life improvements and new features to allow development of native Windows applications even better than before on NuGet with Windows App SDK 1.6.
Windows App SDK 1.6 now supports native Ahead-Of-Time or AOT compilation which allows you to produce an application that is compiled to native code allowing for a faster startup such a with an example app delivering a 50% reduction although results may vary depending on the application along with package size can also be reduced to around half with an example app in self-contained mode. Applications can also have a much smaller memory footprint when using Native AOT with Windows App SDK 1.6.
Windows App SDK 1.6 has decoupled the Edge WebView2 by replacing the hard-coded version with a NuGet reference which allows applications to use any version of the Microsoft.Web.WebView2 package they need or even reference the package directly to streamline dependencies for applications. Windows App SDK 1.6 also supports new MSIX package deployment APIs which support the removal, provisioning and detection of pending registration and updates available locally along with easy feature availability detection to allow developers to light up parts of their applications that are developed using Windows App SDK 1.6.
Windows App SDK 1.6 also includes updates to controls such as an improved TabView tab tear-out experience for how users can drag tabs out of an application where a new window is immediately creating during a tab tear out and there's no limitations due to drag-and-drop APIs as these aren't used. Windows App SDK version 1.6 also has an update to the PipsPager which has a new mode to wrap between the first and last items and RatingControl is now more customisable with theme resources replacing many hard-coded properties. There's also a few new APIs including ColorHelper.ToDisplayName, Microsoft.Windows.Globalization.ApplicationLanguages and additions to Microsoft.Windows.Storage in Windows App SDK version 1.6.
Source: What's new in Windows App SDK 1.6 - Windows Developer Blog