It’s official. Microsoft is has canned Project Astoria, a toolkit which would have allowed Android app developers to port their existing offerings to Windows 10 Mobile. This comes a day after Microsoft acquired Xamarin, a cross-platform mobile app development platform provider. However, the company continues to work on other app porting technologies. Here are the details.
Project Astoria was announced at last year’s Microsoft Build, the company’s developer event, but since then there has been little to no news about it. Now Microsoft has finally closed the book on the Windows Bridge for Android toolkit. The vendor had been working on a Windows Bridge for iOS called Project Islandwood, which is still alive and kicking.
Microsoft explains in a blog post:
“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.”
Both iOS and Android have a vibrant ecosystem of apps. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Mobile platforms have always lagged far behind the competition. Bridging technologies for iOS and Android would provide a quick way to boost the number of apps for Windows 10 Mobile.
But the company seems to have changed tack now that it has acquired Xamarin, which will make it easier for developers to make apps across iOS, Android and Windows operating systems. The company has shifted its focus away from Windows 10 Mobile specifically to giving developers the freedom to make apps across any platform from the get-go.
In other bridging technology news for Windows, Microsoft has revealed that Project Centennial, which helps bring existing Win32 and .NET-based apps to the Windows store is now being tested by “a set of developers”. The company said an early iteration of the tool will be available soon.
[Via Microsoft Windows Blog]
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