At the Build developer conference last year, Microsoft announced plans to offer developers bridge tools so that they could easily port their Android apps to Windows 10 Mobile. The company hasn’t said much about those plans since then and today it has officially confirmed that it’s giving up on those plans, also called Project Astoria. It was announced alongside Project Islandwood but only one of them is getting the axe.
Apps are essential to the success of a mobile operating system and the majority of the apps exist on Android and iOS. The app-gap plagues mobile operating systems like BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone which is one major reason why these platforms are struggling to keep up. Microsoft saw Project Astoria and Project Islandwood as a way to address this issue.
Microsoft says that it has carefully considered feedback from developers on the proposed bridge technologies and has decided to can bridge tools for Android. Project Astoria thus bites the dust for good.
The company is going to focus all of its efforts on Project Islandwood for Windows Bridge for iOS instead, enabling iOS developers to easily port their apps to Windows 10 Mobile. This decision does make sense since iOS is home to a sizeable majority of premium applications.
Windows Bridge for iOS will now be the single bridge option for bringing mobile code to all Windows 10 devices, this includes PCs and even the Xbox.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Apps, iOS, Microsoft and Windows 10 Mobile.