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Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

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Re: Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

#41

Post by rasz_pl »

josefresco wrote: post #12
jbob2000 wrote: post #11

Would it have been cheaper to pay the top 100 Android apps to make a Windows version? Perhaps they do it on a continual basis to keep their marketplace up to date? On that note, I'd like to try making a windows phone app. Is there anything sorely missing from the platform?

I remember a strategy similar to this earlier in the Windows Phone lifecycle - maybe they weren't outright funding the dev teams, but they were offering large incentives. I'll paste a link here if I can dig it up.

Yes, I remember whole shops banging out garbage filler apps just to milk MS subsidies :)

Re: Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

#42

Post by scholia »

jenscow wrote: post #32

Wouldn't it have been easier to just fork Android and slap a Windows logo on it? Like Amazon have done.

Yes, it would have been easier, but that's not the (current) strategy.

The idea of Windows 10 is to have a converged OS that runs on PCs, phones, tablets, games consoles and everything else. "Universal" apps can run anywhere (not necessarily with the same UI).

It's an ecosystem play.

Devs creating apps now have a potential market of more than 100m Windows 10 users, and that will keep growing. (Microsoft's stated target is a billion users.) Apps are not just for Windows phones.

Otherwise, in a few places, Windows Phones are actually more popular than most people think. In France, for example, Windows Phone (12.3%) is not far behind iOS (14.6%). In Italy, Windows Phone (12.4%) actually outsells iOS (10.0%). See http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/global/smartphone-os-market-...

Re: Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

#43

Post by umeshunni »

josefresco wrote: post #12
jbob2000 wrote: post #11

Would it have been cheaper to pay the top 100 Android apps to make a Windows version? Perhaps they do it on a continual basis to keep their marketplace up to date? On that note, I'd like to try making a windows phone app. Is there anything sorely missing from the platform?

I remember a strategy similar to this earlier in the Windows Phone lifecycle - maybe they weren't outright funding the dev teams, but they were offering large incentives. I'll paste a link here if I can dig it up.

Yeah - we were working on a startup idea back in '11 or '12 and MS offered us $2500 to build on WP first. It wasn't nothing, but it was also not even a week's salary for our team and building on WP would have taken more than a week.

Re: Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

#44

Post by chadzawistowski »

frik wrote: post #33
seibelj wrote: post #18

As someone who has spent years building software on top of compiled android binaries, as in, adding features to apps with nothing more than the APK (no source code), I can say that what they are building is not only difficult but quite fragile. I have the benefit of customers who agree to certain OS versions and specific app versions. MS wants it to work universally with every app. It's possible to get it close enoug…

Possible, but it's a usual Microsoft tactics to announce a product years in advance and never deliver (vamporware).

That did happen back in the 90s, yes.

What's the tactical strategy behind Astoria being vaporware?

Re: Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

#45

Post by charlesdm »

jbob2000 wrote: post #31
on_and_off wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, they already do that. >Is there anything sorely missing from the platform? without trolling : the users. It is possible to have some success on the windows mobile platform, but there just isn't a critical mass of users. Other than that, even though it has its problems (like Android or iOS), it has most of the things you would expect.

I'm OK with low users. It's impossible to capture users on iOS and Android because the marketplace is so huge; I can't build anything which doesn't already have 10 different versions. The prospect of a "new frontier" is exciting to me, even if the frontier is very small.

You're not necessarily wrong, though it can be hard to make money on a platform with low users.

HOWEVER! I once met a guy when I was travelling in the UAE, and he built/sold a Twitter app for Palm OS smartphones (their next gen OS they launched some years ago). At the time, he was making close to $40k a month. So there's definitely money on those platforms if you can deliver a good product.

Re: Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

#46

Post by s73v3r »

dharma1 wrote: post #6

Would be great to be able to run Android apps on other platforms, even if they don't replicate the native host UX or have access to all the platform APIs. The only solutions I've seen are -Myriad Alien Dalvik (which isn't free) -Google's ARC Welder (which is very fast but only works inside Chrome/Chromium, doesn't work with all apps, only runs one app at a time and quite clunky to use) And emulators like Bluestacks o…

As a developer, I wouldn't think this would be good. Mainly because I wouldn't have had tested the app on alternative platforms, and people would give bad reviews when it doesn't work, despite me never making the claim that it's compatible.

Re: Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

#47

Post by s73v3r »

Zigurd wrote: post #36
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #28

A good reason why google play services exists is to stop things like this. Its a complex moving target that gets updated monthly. Sure, you can do this with apps that don't use play services, but a lot do, especially popular ones. MS would have a hard time keeping up with changes. Blackberry tried this and it didn't save the Blackberry product. They pretty much gave up recently and now have an excellent android phone…

Amazon does without Google Play Services, and app developers are able to publish their apps on Amazon. It's not a very high bar for app developers, and moving to a Microsoft runtime would be little different than being portable across Google and Amazon devices.

Still requires effort and testing, which might not be worthwhile.

Re: Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

#48

Post by pavlov »

chadzawistowski wrote: post #44
frik wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible, but it's a usual Microsoft tactics to announce a product years in advance and never deliver (vamporware).

That did happen back in the 90s, yes. What's the tactical strategy behind Astoria being vaporware?

It's not vaporware. It's been available in a semi-closed beta for months to 3rd parties and works pretty well.

Re: Microsoft's plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

#49

Post by hackuser »

pavlov wrote: post #27
seibelj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current company, Apperian, is the industry leader in a technology called "App Wrapping", for which we have several patents pending (I'm only there for another week, I'm leaving after nearly 6 years for a new adventure). Read more here: https://www.apperian.com/mobile-application-management/mobil... iOS is different, but on Android we run the decompiled binaries through software making heavy use of finite state mac…

I don't think Microsoft's Astoria even tried to map Android UI elements to native Windows widgets. In my experience, the look and feel is more like a Windows-styled theme for Android. (That sounds pretty bad, but actually Windows 10 Mobile has pretty much broken the tight Windows Phone 7/8 look&feel anyway, so it's not such a big deal for the bridged Android apps.) They do map some of the Google Play services to thei…

From the article, quoting Microsoft's director of OSG John Justice:

“We are windowizing all the most important experiences…we recreated controls, interactions, and user experiences to match the Windows user experience (UX) to eliminate any clashes of interface concepts,”

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