One of Windows (Mobile)’s biggest holes is the fact that the app store is such a barren desert. Many well-known apps are missing and that’s just one of the reasons why people don’t even start to consider the operating system. For the year 2015, Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store have at least 1.2 million apps each – Windows? Only 300,000.
Redmond wanted to solve this, by introducing a Windows Bridge platform aka Project Astoria. Through the project, app developers could easily just port over the same Android code that they used to make apps for the Google Play Store for Windows Phone devices.
Then, last year rumours flared up that Project Astoria was going bust and now Microsoft has confirmed it themselves.
Their statement follows:
“[Microsoft] announced the Windows Bridge for Android (project “Astoria”) at Build last year, and some of you have asked about its status. We received a lot of feedback that having two Bridge technologies to bring code from mobile operating systems to Windows was unnecessary, and the choice between them could be confusing. We have carefully considered this feedback and decided that we would focus our efforts on the Windows Bridge for iOS and make it the single Bridge option for bringing mobile code to all Windows 10 devices, including Xbox and PCs. For those developers who spent time investigating the Android Bridge, we strongly encourage you to take a look at the iOS Bridge and Xamarin as great solutions.”
Acquiring Xamarin is a shortcut but a painful one, considering all the hours spent trying to make Astoria come to life. Microsoft acquisition by default makes Astoria an overkill, as Xamarin does the same thing across not one but three platforms.
That kills coding problems associated with porting from Android and iOS in one shot. So sharing the same common code makes a cross-platform app release be a much easier task.
So Windows Phone is on its last run but will it make a comeback that’s worth talking about? Drop us a comment below to share your thoughts.
