Android Apps Aren't Yet Ready for Windows 10 Mobile Users

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Microsoft made all users of Windows Phone devices excited when it announced a revolutionary Project Astoria, earlier this year. Namely, the purpose of Project Astoria was to solve one of the biggest problems of Windows Phone platform, the lack of apps, by bringing the compatibility with Android apps.

But now, as some reports say, Microsoft decided to pull back the development of this project, in favor of developing iOS porting tools, and there’s a big question if Android apps support will come to Windows 10 Mobile at all.

No Android apps for Windows 10 Mobile users for now

There are a few facts that point out to Microsoft’s decision to dissolve project Astoria. For example, we didn’t hear any news about this project in a long time, also, developer forums dedicated to Project Astoria have fallen silent.

Also, Microsoft removed the Android subsystem from Windows 10 Mobile preview, which allowed users to install Android apps on Windows 10 Mobile even before the release of Project Astoria. We’ve tried to do that, and it’s now impossible to install Android apps on Windows 10 Mobile, by any method.

Also, at this year’s Build developers conference in April, Windows chief, Terry Myerson admitted that the team wanted to work only on iOS apps compatibility at first. And the fact that Project Astoria’s development has been pulled back, while the team is still tirelessly working on Project Islandwood (iOS bridge), only confirms that the company actually decided to change its mind once again, and work only with iOS apps.

It also looks like the purpose of including Android support was only to attract a bigger audience audience of developers in countries where iOS isn’t supported.Microsoft still didn’t confirm that it will completely kill Project Astoria, but it gave us an official comment on this, so we leave the conclusion to you:

“We’re committed to offering developers many options to bring their apps to the Windows Platform, including bridges available now for Web and iOS, and soon Win32. The Astoria bridge is not ready yet, but other tools offer great options for developers. For example, the iOS bridge enables developers to write a native Windows Universal app which calls UWP APIs directly from Objective-C, and to mix and match UWP and iOS concepts such as XAML and UIKit. Developers can write apps that run on all Windows 10 devices and take advantage of native Windows features easily. We’re grateful to the feedback from the development community and look forward to supporting them as they develop apps for Windows 10.”

Project Islandwood, Microsoft’s iOS porting tool is already available, and the developing team is also working on the improvements. Developers will need to change their code a little bit to be compatible with project, but it’s indeed better than creating a whole app from scratch.

Are you disappointed with the fact that Android support may not come to Windows 10 Mobile? Tell us your opinion in the comments.

More about the topics: windows 10 mobile