Microsoft Axe Plan To Bring Android Apps To Windows

Named ‘Project Astoria’, Android Apps was first announced at Microsoft’s Build developer conference last year, which allowed developers to port their Android apps to the company’s mobile operating system.

Instead, the Redmond, Washington-based company will focus its efforts on tools to migrate iOS and existing Win32 desktop applications into Windows Store apps

Microsoft on Thursday acquired mobile app development company, Xamarin Inc. – a cross-platform mobile tool developer.

The company intends to provide developers with a single solution to develop, test, and deliver mobile apps across all major mobile and desktop operating systems (OSes).

“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,” said Kevin Gallo, director of programme management for the Windows Developer Platform, on the Building Apps for Windows blog.

“We have carefully considered this feedback and decided that we will 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.”

Gallo further added that the initiative was part of Microsoft’s vision to make Windows the best development platform regardless of which technologies are used.

“Developers can not only reach all Windows 10 devices, but with Xamarin they can now use a large percentage of their C# code to deliver a fully native mobile app experience for iOS and Android,” he said.

“Xamarin’s approach enables developers to take advantage of the productivity and power of .Net to develop mobile apps and to use C# to write to the full set of native APIs and mobile capabilities provided by each platform.”