The repercussions of Microsoft’s acquisition of Xamarin have been amazing so far, but it wasn’t all going to be rainbows and sunshine. After two years of operation — which included its purchase by Xamarin — the ahead-of-time (AOT) Java compiler RoboVM is going to be shut down.
According to a post by RoboVM CEO Henric Müller, the decision was made after discussions with Microsoft and Xamarin about the “complete landscape of mobile development with Java”.
While RoboVM-compiled apps will “continue to work”, the company cannot guarantee this will remain the case. For instance, Apple doesn’t shy away from innovating its platforms (as it were), be it switching from Power PC to Intel, forcing 64-bit on mobile or coming up with entirely new programming languages or graphics APIs (Swift and Metal).
It’s sufficient to say that developers with current RoboVM projects should transition as soon as possible, with Müller recommending Xamarin’s own cross-platform tools or libGDX.
There’s no specific word on when RoboVM will be abandoned completely, though the post does state that subscriptions will remain active until 30 April 2017, which Müller says should give developers “ample time” to move on.
As was the case with Xamarin licenses, refunds are being offered for RoboVM also.
RoboVM Winding Down [RoboVM, via VentureBeat]
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