back to article Microsoft: It's TRUE, you'll get Android and iOS apps in WINDOWS

Microsoft will get Android code working with Windows 10, confirming the rumors are true, sort of. But what the software giant actually has planned is more nuanced than just borrowing apps from the Google Play store, and it involves courting iOS developers, too. At the Build developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, …

  1. hplasm
    Meh

    First Android apps on Windows-

    Now iOS apps on Windows.

    Whatever happened to Baby Jane...?

  2. Khaptain Silver badge

    One OS to run them all ? Or all to run the one

    If OSes can all run each other apps, then whats the point of having multiple OSes ?

    Isn't this getting to where Linux all wanted to be ?

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: One OS to run them all ? Or all to run the one

      You're right. In a way, this has already happened: using webmail is OS agnostic.

  3. DJV Silver badge

    Preferences

    Am I alone in preferring the idea of a single platform-agnostic language that has the ability to target any OS/hardware combination? If such a thing existed then I would also prefer it to come unburdened by a hefty/bloated IDE that does its best to hide things from me. I have always preferred the simple text editor approach.

    So far, nothing reaches that ideal, though I am keeping a close eye on Red - well, you never know:

    www.red-lang.org

    1. Preston Munchensonton
      Boffin

      Re: Preferences

      You mean like this one?

      http://www.java.com

      1. Fuzz

        Re: You mean like this one?

        you forgot your joke icon

      2. RyokuMas
        Joke

        Re: Preferences

        Java on Windows... throw Flash into the mix and every security bod will be having heart attacks...

    2. SolidSquid

      Re: Preferences

      Not the perfect solution, but cocos2D-x lets you write games (and probably most basic apps) in javascript, lua and c++. Sure it's a framework which is cross platform rather than a language, but it does still seem to do pretty well

  4. bazza Silver badge

    It's ambitious...

    ...and will take a lot of effort to succeed.

    BUT, if they manage it it could be interesting. One of the problems is that they'll have 3 API to maintain, not two (BlackBerry) or one (Google, Apple). That sounds line a lot of work... But once set up, why not?

    Of course it does give them an opportunity to exploit Apple's bad habit of trashing its own API. Apple make another crazy and debilitating change to their API, MS say "your existing source code still works here, but the new API is here too".

    Maybe MS can do a deal with BlackBerry. BlackBerry do Android, MS do iOS, they share the results, and Google and Apple look like die hard walled gardenists.

    Interesting that they're not doing a binary shim like BlackBerry have done, they're simply making a recompile easy. That's less guaranteed; Intel can't persuade Android devs to recompile Android code for x86. With BlackBerry the devs don't even have to do that.

  5. forquare

    Behind as usual…?

    OK, Obj-C is still massively important, and probably still a major part of any app that's been around for more than a year, but didn't Apple release a new language last year? I know they share the same runtime, I wonder how VSC handles Swift.

  6. Craig 2

    Embrace.......

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Extend?

      all apps need to be signed by Microsoft

      lots of lovely jubbly heading to Redmond for doing SFA.

      Who cares is Windows revenues are down the crapper when their Antroid tihes and App signing fees will keep then in the black for years.

      1. sabroni Silver badge
        Happy

        Eventually get over it...

        ...and move on?

  7. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    I wonder who will beta this for them?

    Microsoft will have to set up a really big, robust test army to shake all the bugs from this one. Do they have any history of finding people to "help" them with this?

    1. dogged

      Re: I wonder who will beta this for them?

      King already did. RTFA.

  8. x 7

    I don't want mickey mouse limited functionality "apps" on my computers. I want real fully functional programs I can use to run the businesses. "Apps" are trivial toys for games and suchlike

    Waste of time

    1. P. Lee

      > "Apps" are trivial toys for games and suchlike

      >Waste of time

      Not if you are a dev writing mobile code. Write, test, run, without loading onto a physical device.

      But no, I wouldn't really want mobile apps on my PC either.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RUN!

    I see the policy of Embrace Extend Extenguish is alive and well.

    Rule #1: Don't trust Microsoft

    Rule #2: See rule #1

  10. rtb61

    Apps available, old rule, new rule, default apps included with the phone. Most people want apps just as an option, they want the base phone to have pretty much everything they want and to run well.

    Sure some utility apps are great, ones that connect you to government services, all facets, Federal, State and Local as well as other services and entrainment venue features.

    Often the current publishing regime blocks this and disrupts connectivity unless a publishing fee is paid for a free app, which is really off.

    M$ might well be playing, the 'cut off you nose to spite your face game', breaking up the smart phone app publishing business, rather than gaining control of it. A new law forcing the break up of compulsory publishing restrictions on devices and forcing of open install rules in order to block monopolistic practices.

    1. Dr Stephen Jones

      Excuse me?

      @rtb61

      Are you a Man from Mars?

      Your idea that Apple and Google should be forced by law to publish every damn app submitted to them, by anyone, is... very interesting.

      /runs for door

    2. Richard Plinston

      > A new law forcing the break up of compulsory publishing restrictions on devices and forcing of open install rules in order to block monopolistic practices.

      I am not sure who you are aiming this at. Microsoft restricts what apps can be published on their own app store (for example they will not publish anything that competes) but they are no where near being a monopoly on phones. Android, on the other hand, can download from different sites so anyone can get their apps published somewhrere (see F-Droid) and Google does less to restrict apps being published (eg Microsoft Office is in Google's Play Store).

  11. Mephistro
    Pint

    This -if well performed- would be a genius move for MS. If old Balmy had tried to pull something like this, his brains would've liquefied and oozed through his ears. :-),

    But... as a user, I wouldn't be too happy with this tech. The security implications of having all the IOS and Android malware/scumware/crapware apps ported to Windows are too big to ignore. The attack surface would increase treefold at least, even if Windows 10 uses VMs to run the apps, as long as these apps must/can interact with others. No filtering process either in Android or IOS appstores seems able to completely remove such rogue apps, at least to date.

    I also doubt MS is capable of a good performance. The amount of work needed to keep these elements (OS, apps, APIs, VMs, etc. ) correctly patched would be simply phenomenal. And there's no assurance that MS will keep this effort for many years. They could dictate how often you MUST change your OS, which fits nicely with the idea of renting OSs.

    Note: We NEED a popcorn icon! Though now that I think of it, some beers could be described as liquid popcorn. :-)

  12. Danny 5
    Happy

    sounds like a good idea

    But as Mephistro already stated before me, the attack surface would likely become unmanagably large i'm afraid. Still, it's a very interesting idea and since i'm one of the (growing number) of people who love windows phone, this could bode well for us :)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "With Apple, you choose to invest in iOS or Mac OS. With Google, you choose to invest in Android or Chrome OS," Myerson said. "Windows is the only ecosystem that lets you bring your apps to all of these devices efficiently."

    Really? I thought the thinking here was that you could port your apps to windows to enhance their app store not the other way around.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This:

    "Windows platform to really delight Windows users.""

    Whenever i see the word "delight(ed)) i just know i will be anything but.

    Cant MS hire some coders to make apps for WP that people want??

    Personally, the availbility of Apps is the lowest priority when i buy a phone. And as a WP8 user i haven't found an app on any other platform that i "simply cant be without".

    Want apps? Buy crApple of Blandroid. Want a nice ,easy, smooth UI, buy a WP...

  15. RyokuMas
    Facepalm

    Oh, great...

    Here come another fifty zillion Flappy/Match Three/2048 clones to flood out the Windows marketplace...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Garlic Bread

    Peter Kay is looking well

  17. Benjol

    I'm with @cornz on this one. Why do we need so many apps?

    Have apps become the 'signalling statistic' like pixels on digital cameras, or GB (or MB, or TB) on disk drives? Bigger is always better?

    I'd rather have 100 top-rate, top-quality, useful apps, than the current thousands of duplicated dross of wildly varying quality, and the only way to know which one (if any) of the 10 seemingly identical alternatives is actually any good is to install and try each one by hand.

    I'd far rather have a curated list. Sorry if that sounds too Apple-y (and yes, I have a WinPhone).

  18. Google

    SUN vs MS

    Windows Phone specific API's offered to Android? It's almost like the good old days ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine#Sun_vs._Microsoft )

  19. jaduncan
    WTF?

    90s comeback tours are going too far.

    I thought I'd already seen all the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish hits a million times before.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    w00t! My f*art app will run across all platforms! Not Linux though, the user-base isn't worth the effort!

  21. Aslan

    1995's Microsoft's Embrace, Extend and Extinguish Strategy All Over Again.

    To me this looks like Microsoft of 1995's embrace extend extinguish strategy all over again. They tried to kill Java this way. If Google can't implement Android without getting sued how does Microsoft expect to?

  22. W. Anderson

    Dubious and almost impossible change of character

    It would be ludicrous for any ernest professional developers - not already loyal Microsofties - to take Microsoft seriously regarding "universality" of their new App development program when the company has always, repeat always had a "for Windows only" hard line, draconian policy for software development, and even punished any Windows developers defectors - attempting such platform agnostic development.

    Now they "love" every App platform? Nonsense. Not even desperation will persuade the company to think clearly and act sensibly. A snake will never become a vegetarian and stop eating animals.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Fragmentation++

    Windows 8 already has an identity crisis. This won't help.

    Useless for iOS/Android testing because it's not the real thing. I would be surprised if Apple's and Google's own apps don't refuse to run on it. There'll be compatibility problems too.

    MS store is still a joke, right? Nobody needs another stupid app store.

  24. hugo tyson
    Facepalm

    Fair point

    .... but Java was originally intended to be an ANDF, remember? How these pages were filled with mockery as managers insisted on Java for mainframe projects an other inappropriate targets because it was trendy!

  25. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    "It's not clear how many of the Android APIs it will support, but it's safe to say that some APKs may run unmodified while others won't."

    I don't know if that IS safe to say. When WinRT (the Windows 8 for ARM) was first announced, it was safe to say that it would include x86 emulation and run at least some x86 Windows apps. But it didn't. I'd *hope* it would run (at least well-behaved) APKs unmodified, but perhaps apps will have to be ported.

    "Often the current publishing regime blocks this and disrupts connectivity unless a publishing fee is paid for a free app, which is really off."

    "Often"? Maybe Apple or Microsoft. You know what I have paid Google? A one-time $25 fee to set up my Play account. It costs me $0 to publish apps. Apparently Google didn't even charge this initially, they found $25 was enough to prevent app developers who know Google will close their account (i.e. ones posting pirated or scam apps) from pre-opening a bunch of accounts.

    Microsoft, best of luck. No sarcasm here, this is a very unusual and interesting move on their part and I'm interested to see how it goes.

    1. Richard Plinston

      > WINRT ... it was safe to say that it would include x86 emulation and run at least some x86 Windows apps. But it didn't.

      I don't think that it was ever safe to say that. An x86 emulator on ARM was never a starter. That didn't stop winfans claiming it would be so, though.

      > I'd *hope* it would run (at least well-behaved) APKs unmodified, but perhaps apps will have to be ported.

      According to careful reading of the announcement W10 will _not_ run APKs at all. The idea is that Android apps could be modified and recompiled into being W10 Universal apps. It is likely that the UI would have to be reengineered into XAML or HTML5.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I'm thinking

        Linux <-> Winelib

        Windows <-> Android subsystem

        That is, it's not a full compatibility layer, it's a way to allow developers more easily to port their apps.

        Microsoft has to avoid lockout, and that means getting "essential" apps on their platform. Doesn't matter if they get a load of junk as well.

  26. Maventi

    Sigh

    Embrace

    "To make this possible, Windows phones will include an Android subsystem..."

    Extend

    "...where an app can be written that takes advantage of the Android code but also the extensions that are right in the Windows platform to really delight Windows users."

    It's a risk, but if this works out well for them then stage three will already be completed. History repeats itself (again).

    I don't mind seeing a third player in the mobile market at all, but it does frustrate me that MS that can't comprehend participating in any aspect of technology without attempting total dominance over that sector.

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