Android and iOS apps on windows phone 10

Forums › Legacy mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Web OS, Symbian, Meego, Blackberry) › Android and iOS apps on windows phone 10

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nathan

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#1294779 1-May-2015 09:12

markl:
nathan:
invisibleman18: Would be great if it happens.

I love Windows Phone and have no desire to change at the moment. Admittedly I have only really used Windows since I won a Lumia 520 and it was my first smartphone (having never considered windows before) and have just upgraded to the 735. Not really used IOS at all other than the odd 2 minute play in a shop, but based on playing with my partner's Android phone Windows seems a much better experience.

It is happening. It was announced at 330AM this morning

Just to inject a dose of reality into the discussion - what Microsoft have done is to provide frameworks that allow DEVELOPERS to RECOMPILE their platform specific native Objective C (iOS) and Java (Android) code so that they then have their app running on Windows Phone 10.

You will NOT be able to go to iTunes or Google Play and download and install any old app you find, and run it. The developer has to take the steps to recompile and publish their app to the Wndows Store...

So in theory it means better app support for Windows Phone, but it's still totally dependent on the developers to decide to "port" their apps. I'm more interested in seeing what Microsoft is going to do to convince them that this is actually worthwhile. I doubt that the promise of next to no effort to do achieve this, is in itself enough to convince most devs to do this.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised

markl

348 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1294804 1-May-2015 09:24

Wade: And apps that relie on Google walled apps will probably need to be made to work with the MS equivalent maps mail etc

My understanding is though it should only take the dev's a portion of the total development time to modify their iOS or AOS app to be compatible with the whole w10 family not just wp10 so well worth the effort

Is it worth it though? I think you need to think in terms of target form factor - you aren't going to want to port an app with a heavily phone-specific UI to run on full windows...so apps like that are really targetting Windows Phone and, dangling carrots provided by MS not withstanding, the userbase of Windows Phone is going to need to increase a lot to make it worth even the small amount of effort it evidentally will require. And of course, the user base isn't going to increase without the apps there...SO the ball is still in MS' court regarding any incentives for developers to do this.

Bearing in mind also that Obj-C and Java do not represent the only languages that apps are developed in on the respective platforms, so you will still have many apps that can't be converted in this way...

roobarb

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#1294835 1-May-2015 10:01

markl: Bearing in mind also that Obj-C and Java do not represent the only languages that apps are developed in on the respective platforms, so you will still have many apps that can't be converted in this way...

Obj-C and Java represent the vast majority.

As a developer of apps, I currently have to treat each platform as it's own unique app, there is no code sharing between Obj-C/C#/Java environments without significant complexity.

Being able to share model (none-gui) components between platforms and have a different GUI layer for each would bring the best of all worlds, allowing each app to maintain the look and feel of that platform. For instance it is easy to share C++ code on both Apple and BlackBerry platforms because they are both native compilations. You can write C++ as managed code for CLR, but it is a subset.

The questions I have are

* will apps still have to meet the same windows store acceptance criteria?
* will Obj-C run as managed code?
* will apps have to be repackaged by original developers?

I can see the Window App Store being very quickly polluted with tat if the high standards are not maintained.

markl

348 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1294851 1-May-2015 10:11

roobarb:
As a developer of apps, I currently have to treat each platform as it's own unique app, there is no code sharing between Obj-C/C#/Java environments without significant complexity.

Being able to share model (none-gui) components between platforms and have a different GUI layer for each would bring the best of all worlds, allowing each app to maintain the look and feel of that platform.

You mean like if you used C# and Xamarin, rather than Obj-C/C#/Java accordingly?

roobarb

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#1294854 1-May-2015 10:20

markl: You mean like if you used C# and Xamarin, rather than Obj-C/C#/Java accordingly?

Xamarin has done the heavy lifting of providing a common development environment, but these toolkits always come with a set of compromises. When you stay within the 90% doing normal things supported by the Toolkit, things are all easy, when you stray into the 10% of the technology not covered by the toolkit then you have real work to do again.

markl

348 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1294856 1-May-2015 10:23

roobarb:
markl: You mean like if you used C# and Xamarin, rather than Obj-C/C#/Java accordingly?

Xamarin has done the heavy lifting of providing a common development environment, but these toolkits always come with a set of compromises. When you stay within the 90% doing normal things supported by the Toolkit, things are all easy, when you stray into the 10% of the technology not covered by the toolkit then you have real work to do again.

You speaking from direct experience, or assumed? :)

roobarb

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#1294860 1-May-2015 10:31

markl: You speaking from direct experience, or assumed? :)

My mistake, 90% was from the Wikipedia article. The website says 75%.

http://xamarin.com/platform

No direct experience of Xamarin, but have use similar toolkits over the decades that bridge very different systems, Qt is a good example.

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roobarb

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#1294874 1-May-2015 10:43

Qt is a good example, AIR is a bad example... :)

markl

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Ultimate Geek

#1294877 1-May-2015 10:47

roobarb:
markl: You speaking from direct experience, or assumed? :)

My mistake, 90% was from the Wikipedia article. The website says 75%.

http://xamarin.com/platform

No direct experience of Xamarin, but have use similar toolkits over the decades that bridge very different systems, Qt is a good example.

75% of code on average can be shared it says. It also points out that nearly 100% can shared if you use Xamarin Forms...

roobarb

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#1294915 1-May-2015 11:15

markl: 75% of code on average can be shared it says. It also points out that nearly 100% can shared if you use Xamarin Forms...

So the choice between VS or Xamarin is whether to re-use your existing iOS/Java app source, or rewrite your app using an abstraction toolkit.

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