Microsoft announced today during its Build conference that it will release a tool for developers to port their iOS apps directly to Windows 10 as “universal apps” that run on both phones and desktop computers. Developers will be able to feed their existing Objective-C code into a new software package and have it converted to work on the upcoming PC operating system.
At least, that’s how Microsoft is pitching it, though the whole process is a bit more complex. Essentially Windows 10 will ship with APIs that mirror the expected behavior of many iOS APIs, and this new conversion tool will help developers swap out iOS code for matching Windows code.
Because Windows 10 will be the operating system powering not only future desktop PCs, but also many mobile phones, this new capability will help Microsoft quickly build its Windows Phone app library. In fact, the company demonstrated the results of the software today by running almost completely unmodified Android apps on a Windows Phone handset.
Unfortunately for iOS developers, there is absolutely no mention of Apple’s new Swift programming language, meaning those looking to make their apps cross-platform easily will need to hang back on Obj-C for now.
Earlier today Microsoft announced a version of its Visual Design Studio IDE for Mac and cross-platform add-ons for Microsoft Office.
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you have to wonder if this is too late for MS and what they were thinking. this is something MS should had done years ago. Windows Phone is great and all but seems like the ship has sailed. i could be wrong but personally have never been interested in Windows Phone
This is brilliant – a developer can focus 85% of his or her time on iOS because it’s the best market but then with little effort expand to Windows.
It’s contingent on how well the tool actually works. One shouldn’t ruin their brand by carelessly distributing their app.
They directly mentioned that concern and I believe they said Candy Crush was ported this way very quickly and with very few changes necessary.
They already have a better solution, because it is native on Windows: Xamarin/.NET.
when will this “Tool” be available?
Probably alongside Windows 10 later this year.
Curious. Will apps designed for Windows 10 phone work on the Windows 10 desktop as well?
If they’re designed as universal apps they should.
In fact it’s already happening. For several of Microsoft’s own productivity apps, the exact same app runs across devices with an adaptive UX.
“One OS to rule them all” is part of their core strategy.
Windows 10 Apps run in UAP (Universal App Platform), which is available on all Windows 10 devices (be it desktop, phone, xbox, rasperrbyPi, …) in a binary compatible manner. Therefore, the same binary can run anywhere, where UAP is availabe – no dedicated compiles are needed for the various platforms. The different UAP instances will take care of visually rendering the App in a way that matches the form factor. Developers can of course have an impact on that if they want.
More info:
http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/a-developers-guide-to-windows-10-preview
Sure end up many problems will be surfaced. Just my sense
NOT looking forward to it, it will force developers to stick with Obj-C instead of taking advantage of Swift… its Microsoft’s way of trying to choke the adoption of Swift.
@Isenberg, this software Microsoft has made, proberbly took atleast a year or perhaps even longer to create, so i think thats why it only works with Objective-C and not (yet) with the new Swift.
Microsoft does great things lately!!! I’m a mac pro user and developer but nowadays mac’s are not so magical anymore. Regarding ObjC or swift… I used swift already in some projects… but still like ObjC more gives me more freedom and more power! C++11 on the other hand is greater :D Good job Microsoft you are making everything right!
I wonder if they will get snapchat, the CEO doesn’t like Microsoft. http://www.windowscentral.com/snapchat-silences-critics-removes-support-form
Well I wonder how many will switch to windows phone now that they will have more apps.
“Effortlessly ” is a bit of a stretch, although the experience is nowhere as daunting as keeping two completely different codebases. You WILL need to make slight adjustments to your code, especially if you want to take advantage of Windows 10 services.
This functionality will be part of the next Visual Studio release, not a separate “tool”, FYI.
Meh. Why? Microsoft is so last decade. We don’t need them.
After using Windows for YEARS, I now prefer OSX, but it is positively antiquated compared to what Windows 10 is looking like.
As for Hololens – if that does even half the things which has been demonstrated at Build it is the biggest advancement in computing in decades.
I don’t agree with that. I’ve tested Windows 10 quite a bit, and I find it to be the same old Windows that came before it. Nothing really new. Internally, nothing has really changed, and I’m very sure that it’s still going to be susceptible to loads of malware that is right now being created to run on it. What will Microsoft do about it? Absolutely nothing. At least Mac users have Gatekeeper to help keep us safe.
Sure, under the covers it’s the same Windows. That’s what keeps Microsoft’s backward compatibility working so well, which businesses drool over. Businesses are the cash cow.
What’s new is the tighter integration with Microsoft cloud services, a la and Google. They’re also courting developers again, which is reviving an old tactic from decades ago, and offering more cross-platform products and services.
They have the Microsoft Store, similar to the Mac App Store, which will run sandboxed apps. Edge will hopefully have better resistance to browser hijacking than IE. Gatekeeper is something they could always implement, but suspect many novice users would disable it because they don’t understand its purpose.
At this point Microsoft is moving in some good directions with Satya’s direction. I’ll still only use their products at work, but maybe I’ll become less grumpy about it. ;-)
I know the Windows phone user base is small compared to Android and iOS, but I’m betting this will have them quite ticked off. One of the coolest parts of the Windows phone experience is the unique interface. The live tiles, the side swiping to different ‘pages’ of an app. For the existing users that went to Windows phones because of that unique experience this will make them wonder why they bothered getting a Windows phone.
Interesting play by Microsoft, nonetheless.
Nice of you to assume how windows phone users feel. I’m on my second and about to buy my third.
See the app gap is a total myth…. Windows has plenty of apps that are high quality. What this end around Microsoft did though is eventually grab those that left and those on the fence… That pushes Windows Mobile easy past 10% and then they get their own developers to write Universal apps. A Billion users is an enticing target and I personally could care less for any IOS or Android app.
What this does though is make it much easier for people to adopt Windows Mobile and that is a good thing because frankly IOS and Android suck.
You sound offended that I’m basically agreeing with you. I’ve read Windows phone-user forum threads where users are complaining about the influx of UI and UX elements from Android and iOS making their way onto their phones. This effort by Microsoft to curb their losses does tend to pollute the quality of their work, which is unfortunate.
I do have a friend with a Windows phone and he’s on the verge of giving up on it because the apps he wants are stagnant, haven’t appeared or were pulled. That’s quite unfortunate because he was quite the Windows phone evangelist at first.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree that iOS and Android both suck. All three systems have strengths and weaknesses. I’m no fan of Microsoft, but I admire some of their ideas, as well as some of Google’s ideas for Android.
2 caveats: Swift and Metal…