Microsoft shows how easy it will be to port Android apps to Windows 10 in new video

Looks super sophisticated. Especially the interop mapping and mapping API calls Google services to Microsoft services. Really pleasantly surprised.

Yes that describes the feeling. Pleasantly surprised.

Nor I. This is amazing. Now the devs just need to step up and try it out.

This is also the same thing Oracle tried to take them to court for with Java and it's API's.  :)

Google threatens developers that if they create the app for other platforms, google MAY remove the already successfull app from google playstore. I saw it in some developers discussion forum. It's true. :(

Source? Otherwise it's just a he said she said situation. Not to mention the fact that what you're saying would eliminate a bunch of apps right away due to the large cross over library between iOS and Android and even BB. I highly doubt it's true, and I doubt even more that devs would put up with that.

Completely agree.  I doublt this is true.  Not to mention, if a developer's app has been in the Google PlayStore or Apple Store for 6 months to a year, it most probably has already been sold to about as many people as are going to purchase it.  You may get another 10% to 15% additional sales, but that's about it.  If a developer recodes his app for Windows 10(where it currently doesn't exist) the app is now in a market with 100% sales potential all over again.  And before a Google fanboy pops in about Windows Phone sales, let me remind you I'm talking about Windows 10, NOT Windows Phone.  An app created for Windows 10 will work on ALL Windows 10 devices (desktops, laptops, convertables, tablets, phablet, phones, xbox, Halolens, etc.) so the actual number of devices is FAR greater than just 3% phone sales.    If Google threatens a developer to have their app removed from the Google PlayStore, no big deal.  He'll make more money in the Windows 10 Store anyway!

I had to go through so many things to find this. But finally i found it. This was in a comment section about the so called 'app gap' of windows phone. I took a screenshot and tweeted this then.
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CA4h8b0W8AANoq8.jpg Also, i came to know about few services who helps to dig out our own old tweets! Thank you. :)

Well the first discrepancy I see is that Spotify has an app on WP and they weren't removed from Android. Facebook is another, but there are multiple apps that are on both platforms. It's also a message saying "I heard from my boss" so it is in no way official. Sorry but I call complete BS on this or else you'd see some more official text about it.

Yea, that's what i've written in my first comment. They MAY remove. Nobody is sure. Even the person who commented says that they(google) MIGHT consider. So we don't know for sure. But with a campaign like 'Scroogled' against them by MS, even i would've done the same. :D
I don't know who started it, but i don't see google doing anything FOR WP in the near or distant future. And there is always chance that the MIGHT do things against it. :)

Why would they now? Blackberry can install .apk's from the device themselves, OTA. Dont even need to sideload.

true, but Android apps only work on Blackberry devices so long as they don't rely too much on Google Play Store/Services.  At least Microsoft seems to have addressed this kind of shortcoming and re-targeted some of the Android API's to use Microsoft services in place of Google's.  Of course there's still going to be shortcomings, but at least every Android app featured in the Microsoft store *will* work, and it will be the only means of getting access to Android apps.   This is the difference between Blackberry's approach, where anyone can grab an APK from anywhere, but there's no guarantee it'll be 100% compatible.  This is also the source of much of the frustration from Blackberry users who expect to be able to 'just run Android apps'.  Blackberry didn't do enough to ensure that *only* apps with 100% compatibility would be accessible to users.  This has led to a land of confusion.   I'm glad I left that mess behind!      

Before being able to install APKs directly or through a loader, BlackBerry also offered porting of Android apps with very little code changes and a button click, which would wrap the APK and allow it to run on BlackBerry's Android runtime. There were also lots of interoperability hooks to translate some API calls put in place but at the end of the day the biggest downfall like you said was the dependencyon Google Play Services, the result was that it claimed 98% of Android apps are supported but the 2% unsupported are the most critical ones. BB10.3 has improved Android compatibility vastly but still, Google Services are irreplaceable, although there are ways to solve that. And I think Microsoft is in the same spot, simply because the most critical apps require you to log into your Google account and I just don't see how substituting it with whatever Microsoft service is going to solve that. So I suspect Microsoft just left that part out. However I am very curious to how they approached the ios porting part.

Did this guy say blackberry??

Blackberry doesn't have a giant user base on desktop that the devs can capitalize on by making universal apps

Google would have to change the code structure of their open OS, it will not happen.  Remember, it is not Google's property that is being imported and modified, it is the developer's.

I totally agree, this is great as it will mean no more people bemoaning a lack of apps etc. I was just being a scroogle cynic earlier

They showed MSFT the middle finger long enough by not offering WP support for people using the google suite on PC or laptops, but now it will be easy to bring other android apps to WP.

they're going to change the code to piss off microsoft? that will just piss off the developers.

It would be awesome if they can develop a windows program and it would allow you to also create ios/android apps with your windows code.  This would drive most developers to code WP apps first.

They've already done that, it hasn't worked :(

I don't know that this is not already out there but I like this idea.

Why force a lot of devlopers to reinvent their workflow and toolchain while it's much easier to offer a (more or less) drop in add-on to allow them to also publlish for/to Windows.   With more windows (10)  device in the wild than any other current OS (and hitting that 1 billion mark is IMO actually a cautious and fairly easy target) his will pull in a lot of apps easily.

That already exists: it's called the Xamarin Platform. It's not made by Microsoft but it allows you to write apps in C# for Windows, Android, and iOS. It isn't very popular, though.

I believe that MS purchased Xamarin if I'm not mistaken. ​

nop

Microsoft has worked with Xamarin but doesn't have any stake in them.

I've said about three years ago Windows (mobile) would ovetake iOS and get closer to Android within 5 yesrs. Seems I am not far off so far..

There is an immense difference between total devices and total mobile devices. It's the second number that actually matters in convincing most developers to bother with a Windows app.  I don't think anyone really doubts the huge number of total devices that will be running Windows 10. The huge doubt is how many of them will actually be mobile ones. 

Windows 10 supports UNIVERSAL apps. This makes your mobile device quandary a nonexistent problem.

It don't matter windows 10 is windows 10 I have a feeling Microsoft will put pressure on all developers who are interested in developing for windows 10 on PC or Xbox to make there apps universal and get them on phone to. So if a popular android app wants on the Xbox the only way Microsoft will allow it is if they agree to make it a universal app to work on phone also. This way your useing you big userbase in other products like pc/xbox to increase apps for you smaller marketshare products phone/tablets.

Exactly, but what you fail to realize is that PC manufacturers themselves are creating more and more mobile devices and "convertable" devices.  As people get rid of their clunky desktops, they aren't buying iPads to replace them.  They are buying tablets and convertables to replace them which will be running Windows 10 and capable of running these apps.  PC and laptop sales may be falling, but tablets and convertables are running higher right now and Windows 10 will only increase those sales numbers.  When people start using these apps on their tablets and convertables, they will eventually want to continue this on their smaller mobile devices and with new Windows 10 phones coming down the pike....  :-)

Why would support be an issue? It's just the iOS or Android app that they used software to port. There is virtually zero work.

Well sense the app is running similar code it should not be a huge problem to update it. You update your android App first and then the windows one. If the Windows version runs in to a problem You fix it. If the android version runs in to a problem you fix it. You will earn more money sense you now get revenu from two markets instead of one so i think it will be worth the trubble in the end. That´s it. This should not be an issue. Yes it´s one more app to worry about but it´s also more money in your pockets and sense the apps have so much incoment code wise i really don´t think it will be a huge issue to keep them both up to date. 

Supporting will be quite easy because after porting, they can update their app on Android and that would subsequently update it on Windows. Candy Crush works like that, never seen them complaining about support and they are quite regular with updates.

i'm not a programmer, but wouldn't support involve updatimg the ios app and then use these same tools to port the update to windows. doesn't seem like it would involve a huge amount of additional effort.

Depends on whether this move by Microsoft will success to pull in more users or not. Because if it is successful, then like it or not, service companies will be forced to adding support to Windows. Failing to dot it will cost them in the long run because their customers will move to their competitors who support Windows. But if this move is failed to pull in users, then what you say will be true.

I doubt that iOS users will covert. But Android users might. The easiest apps to port is probably games. Since they don't need any UI changes. If those games can be ported easily with minimum effort (take Candy Crush for example), I don't see why people doesn't want to try the new platforms. Once the games draw in users, the market will grow, which eventually attracted more social networking service to support the platform (I'm talking about you, Instagram). This, might drawn even more users. Then, the business app might consider that the platform already gain enough users so they can start porting their own apps too. BUT... That's depending on how Microsoft will pull these strategies. How Microsoft will market their platform. How Microsoft offer incentives to developers to port their apps. What I want to say is, success and failure still can be a possible outcome.

WP don't have support of devs, so nothing will change. 

Anyone building apps for Android has a much greater support challenge already, given the myriad number of Android versions out in the wild, each with varying degrees of compatibility with each other. We use Xamarin to build business apps for Android and Apple to support our cloud-based software, and supporting windows 10 will be be no different to adding the next version of Android. Regarding development, Microsoft have said that they've built an extension to Android Studio with the Windows Phone emulator and compiler.  I don't use Android Studio, but anyone using that suite should be able to run/test their existing codebase and choose Windows10 as a target platform.  There's no need to iteratively 'convert' each version of your app/project into c# for example, and apply the same Windows-specific 'tweaks' each time.  

Well you don't seem to understand that its not that hard to support a program that's already made all you got to do is when you update the IOS or android version recompile It and send it out to android IOS and windows at the same time you and developers like you just try to find any excuse even if its stupid and not valid to make your case that devloping for windows is hard or the wrong thing to do but most of you are bias and bash Microsoft and kiss android and IOS'S buttes but if you all were really smart you would understand who has been doing this for over thirty years Microsoft and that's a safe bet but you pick a company that owes there very existence to Microsoft and that has been around for half the time with Half the experience and that's google a big but bias and unfair and unfriendly to customers for your salvation so do me and all the windows fans that are actually windows fans alone and praise you bias views on the IOS or androids site.

This really has nothing to do with being biased, or a Windows fan, or an iOS/Android fan, it is about the due diligence that an entity like a bank must put forth before releasing an official app on ANY platform. There really isn't any doubt that this technology will allow many more apps to be ported to Windows, but it isn't a silver bullet that is gong to close the app gap. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Game developers, fart app developers, maybe even tool/utility developers will take advantage of the ability to port to Windows, but banks, credit card companies, stores, etc. may be hesitant to trust such seemingly magical technology. Also, you shouldn't forget that by providing this, MS is basically abandoning all that made Windows Phone unique and in many way better than iOS/Android and instead, they are adopting the patterns used in competing platforms.

Surely Microsoft have some idea of what they are doing.  They develop their own apps for IOS, Android and WP, and must have some idea of what it is like to develop for and support these platforms. I don't think they see this as the final answer - just a step in the process to remove some of the obstacles and accelerate growth.  These tools reduce the initial obstacles of porting apps. Sure, there will always be some app developers who won't be bothered, however easy you make it for them, and some will try it and then give up. But if just some of them find this useful and they get a good response from W10 users, then perhaps that will get the ball rolling.   If you were Microsoft, what would you have done?

Oh man, you're right a company that designs software as their primary source of revenue has forgotten that support is necessary. Dude, you're seriously far off in your own little world. 

Your pessimism is so attractive. You must be DJCBS's offpsring.

In orgasm menstruation?

They should start selling the staples button. "that was easy".

Just to pass being 2rd and 3rd first!

Excellent. This is just what Microsoft needs right now. Now as long as they don't botch the implementation...

More about devs taking advantage of this break

Well, as long as they let it be well known❗ Im worried it won't be pushed upon Android, and iOS, developers hard enough...
.........
First things first.... How does MS plan to reach out to all those developers❓

I think it would work by sheer word of mouth. Who doesn't want some extra cash for minimal work? Once a couple of devs try it and see significant increased cash flow, it enters a positive feedback loop, the key is that MS delivers the tools as expected, and I think they are right there!

That's the ideal scenario...

Social media is there friend. Find out which hashtags are most viewed and trafficked and place promoted tweets in using those hashtags. Also apply to be guest speakers at dev meetup events. The traveling BUILD show should help some too.

Right... They should go to Apples developers conference... Lol.

One would think/hope most development firms at least follow the tech world enough to see these headlines.

No... It's gonna take more than headlines.... MS has to actively continue to strategically seek out, and target, developers to use this new feature..
..........
Hoping, or assuming, someone will take notice is what got MS in this mess in the first place.

Maybe they could try and hold a conference for developers to recieve news about new Microsoft tools and such about development. They could even invite a ton of people to it. They just have to come up with a catchy name.... Build, that should work.

Are you serious❓ Really, that's as far as your thinking goes❓ You think all those iDroid developers give a flip about Build❓❓❓❓ LMFAO❗ Where have you been❓
...............
That's the problem, dude. Heck, if every developer paid attention, or attended, Build we wouldn't have any app gap... SMDH... Lol. MS has to do much more than Build, because if they didn't then the previous Build conferences would've fixed the app problem.... Lol.. MS has to get a lit if them to even consider paying attention, less known than expecting for them to attended Build...
..........
Build happens once a year... Developers need to be solicited to 60/24/7/365 days a year... Come on. This is W10 we're talking about.. It's time for some real results, not hoping people will notice.

I'll make this simple. You're not a developer, so you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. Build isn't just about mobile OS and developing for that. There are thousands, possibly millions, of developers that were following the build conference. In fact, the owners of my company paid attention do it and we develop for our own OS, in our own languages. Why is that? Because developers follow the big name conferences, especially if it can give them tools to work with, or cause headaches for them. We don't wait around and suddenly stumble upon this stuff. So go run along and play with your trains and allow the people that code talk about what they know.

No, dude.. Build is not what I have in mind.... I got your point, but no that's not what I'm talking about...
.......
Now, that I don't care about your opinion anymore understand that, and give it up... You don't like my point of view's, and I'm fine with that.. But, you're free to ignore them all day long if you want to.. But, I don't talk to disturbed users like you... Ignoring you now... If you keep harassing me I will report you.

That's one side of it. It drives down the cost of making an app for sure and getting started with a presence in the Windows world but Microsoft will still need to work hard on driving the maintenance costs down for the apps and making it easy to update them. Otherwise, you'll see an app being released with an Android wrapper only for it to be never updated again. Also concerning would be the lack of a need to design native Windows app. Purely from a financial stand point, companies could design one app and port it over to Windows and cut their costs in half. There's almost no incentive to design a native one. Unless the market share reaches a point where it would be financially viable for a company to do that.

Windows users care too much about design. We need to stop so developers will make apps

Link of the video?

If you're using the app, swipe to "more" > View Links > external
.......
http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Inside-Windows-Platform/Project-Astoria-B...

Thanks bruh

Your welcome!

Am I the only one that finds myself hunting and guessing for links in articles in both versions of the WC app (WP and Win8.1), why are they hidden in odd places under odd names or amongst a long list of nondescript web addresses? Reading this article, I am literally guessing which if any of the various links go to the video which is the topic of the article. (Sorry - mini rant there, but sheesh - hypertext was invented in the 90's?

Don't worry, in future they'll hide it in hamburger in far left corner so it will be hard to reach and you won't even bother to open it.

I never knew that six inches or less was"hard to reach." Will they finally implement hypertext?

They try to have as many of the web links to their own pages as possible to maximize clicks and thus ad revenue.

Or to help people who want more info? Wtf, do know anything about how thus works. It's how Wikipedia is setup. Why make u search for more information on an app or topic when we already did? None of us get paid by ad clicks, so id appreciate if u stop pretending to know our motivation without ever even meeting us.

Here Dan.
*hands you some pepto bismol*
This will help when you cough up the guys head that you just bit off. ;)
In all seriousness, I'm sure his ignorance is a systemic societal failure in the educational system.. or maybe he's just an a** hole?.. Sidenote: Really enjoy your articles, Man. Keep up the good work.
"This ends our segment on A$$Kiss Corner... Now to our regularly scheduled Comments."

Where's the link to the video?

Try following the web link...

Link??

This is just frickin awesome. If it really is that simple, I can't see why devs wouldn't take advantage of this. Increased revenue here they come!!

I think that would be the ultimate motivation, the temptation of possibly making several thousand extra dollars for maybe a day or two's extra work is just too good to pass up!

LOL, the demos always show how "simple" things like these are.  But in reality, most of the time it's not.  I'm not saying it's difficult either, but 99% of the time, it's a lot more than just one line of code to change.

Link to the video or nah?

Will porting work for video players?

Link http://video.ch9.ms/ch9/d81c/bc5886b8-6d03-4601-a872-3c658b4ed81c/Projec...

Thanks bruh

Come on developers... Its your turn now. All the very best :)

If they don't come now, it is purely out of spite. Like snap chat.

I hope they'll step ahead & give their 100% towards Windows platform too.

I do too!

Just Wait and watch Whether it helps ???? What do you think about it ::)

Does these mean Snapchat can release there app when Windows phone 10 comes out?????

Rudy huyn already offered them to make an app but they don't want it isn't a matter of effort or cost but they don't want to release

Rudy offering to make it for them was never a realistic proposition, as that would result in them contracting out their proprietary information and giving access to customers' data to an non-employee, I would think. That said, Snapchat's CEO is clearly an anti-Microsoft nitwit and, even though Microsoft just made it ridiculously easy and cheap for companies to port their apps over, it's  unlikely that egotistical idiots like those running Snapchat will do it. I'd much rather see Snapchat die out as the stupid fad that it is.

many companies contract 3rd party people for develping o design anything... why would that be a problem now? that's why a contracts and NDA exist... so people can always work without revealing their work to the world. so your "never a realistic" is not true. it happens around the world, not only in developing an app, but graphic design, 3d design, visual effect, arquitectural design and anything you can imagine. Just look at gametroopers studio. do you think it's any different to hire them to port games from iOS to WP than snapchat hiring rudy to do it? it's not like they got overkill 3 game from dust and decided to make a clone with it named the same. so again, 3rd party can be used, but yes I agree Snapchat CEO is an idiot, and I am glad my friends don't use snapchat or have used it "couple times" and never used it again.  

There is a huge difference between a company that has long been under the microscope of consumer privacy issues (i.e. Snapchat), whose app deals with sensitive information (customers' time-sensitive texts, photos, and videos, many of them sexual in nature) and companies like Game Troopers who port unobtrusive games over, or doing graphic design, etc. You're talking about giving a non-employee, NDA or not, full control over your platform and your customers' information. It was never going to happen. The Snapchat CEO is a definitely stupid, but even he isn't stupid enough to outsource development of his app, given the context described above.

You don't have to be a full time salary employee to be an employee.  I am doing contract work as a developer for a bank right now.  I have access to their main database systems.  I think that qualifies as sensitive info (it's actually heavily regulated by federal laws).  I signed an NDA and contract which makes me a contract employee. It's probably also worth pointing out that Rudy had already built a working SnapChat app so I don't think he required much more information than he already had.

And there are plenty of contractors working for the federal government too who have access to sensitive data; they have to go through rigorous background checks. But these are different situations than Snapchat. Snapchat had long been under the microscope for privacy issues, deal with an entirely other type of 'sensitive data' than banks or federal contractors deal with, and had undergon several security risks due to third-party applications. Yes, Rudy built a working Snapchat app (one that is better than the official one), but there was no way they ever were going to bring on an foreign national, independent developer and give him full access to their code and customer information given the context above. It just wasn't going to happen, and it's different than other contracting situations.

They have always could. The problem is that they don't want to. If I'm not wrong,I think that the developer Rudy Hyun has offered to make one for them. It seems like they don't want Windows to have Snapchat

This doesn't mean that. Apps could always be released on WP. This just makes it easier.

They can release one now, nothing stops them. And yes, they can port their Android app too. IF they want to.

They won't douche CEO is anti-ms.

And I will be glad that we stay away from that asshole CEO of snapchat. We shouldn't care about him and his app who takes things personally saying who uses windows phone. Heck India is one of the big windows phone market with 17% share. These ppl often target India as we are large in population. Microsoft will be the 2nd largest now after Samsung. Micromax is going to loose its position soon.

Not ready untill the Autumn, shame. But to be honest, I don't think 10 will arrive until the end of August, at the earliest.

Yeah, that was disappointing to read. I was hoping it would be out right now so that apps would be ready by the time Windows 10 launches this summer.

This is MSFT's final bet. If this works the OS's will finally be competing on features and aesthetics and not on apps. One area that Microsoft might actually be able to trounce Google will be in updates. The coming year is going to be very interesting.

This will kill the WP store, why they are doing this, if devs don't care about WP they won't even if it's"easy" to port android apps to wp

Why would it kill the store? If they do release it: More apps and if they don't: No apps. So it's either a win or the status quo remains.

He's right though.... the store is going to be littered with awful Android and Apple re-brands and will look like they have nothing to do with the Windows OS. All of the Windows beauty will be lost.

How would you even know how the app store is going to look? Do you think that the apps will be straight copies with no respect for WP UI? Of course not. That would be stupid and illogical. The store probably won't become a stew made from WP, IOS and Android styles.

Why wouldn't it? Your response to my suggestion has just as much merit as the suggestion originally.

All stores are already littered with crap. This at least creates a situation of choice for the user. Which we do not have now.

So many comments, but I will only make one: When there are more apps to choose from, there will be more competition to those apps. So, user will have more choice based on the reviews of those app. If the reviews are bad, then the user will have the choice to move to another app.   I don't get why this is a bad thing... 

Exactly basically supply and demand. People are demanding for this specific app or game and watch the horde of similar applications come to cater to those similar applications that might as well be ten times better than the "original" application. Look at the Flappy Bird inspired games, Infiniminer inspired games like Minecraft and other like games like Survivalcraft, Block Earth, Edwin World Builder, Discovery+, Terraria is its 2D like aspect which launched games based on that. Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

You're wrong. This is an amazing move. Developers must be stunned that Microsoft sat down and made all these codes compatible with Visual Studio.. They just have to develop one app for 2 platforms now, or 2 apps for 3.. Do you even realize the possibility of an app being available to 1 billion devices? HYPED!

You are right on point!

Put a shirt on, Max.

Good advice. He was clearly not thinking straight due to hypothermia.

This isn't about windows phone. Its about windows 10. Phones are just a small part of the ecosystem that many devs will not care about.

Exactly. Devs know that Windows Phone doesn't have enough market share to even give them a penny, but Windows 10 as a whole is a HUGE opportunity for them to gain profit from a vast majority of users, especially across PC and tablet. Windows Phone is just an added bonus for us end users, and who knows, one day it'll most likely increase in marketshare. I'd be satisfied if it only reaches 10% global marketshare. It beats people bitching And whining that it's "dead" just because its at 3%

What they said, and keep in mind that the port of the app means it can run on Windows 10, not just Windows 10 for phones. That is the advantage now. I can not wait to have a small windowed app running to stream SomaFM or Sirius.

Did you miss how they are still "windows apps"?... people like you are funny, making crap. like if we were going to run APK inside windows. it's REUSING the code. and it's a good thing. how many projects do you think are made that share codes to be used on Windows/linux/mac? or do you think developers like to make code from zero? changes have to be made anyway... but developers deserve to port their apps easily and nice. so no, it won't kill anything. becuase we won't run APKs inside windows. and windows store will have more games and apps, regardless of where the code comes, from iOS, Android or they are build from zero.

At this point, we take what we can get. Let's even get the apps first, then we can talk about polishing them later on...

We have to forget about design. Thats the only way Windows will survive; Apps

Did you notice the new start screen? It looks fantastic :) EDIT: image: http://i.imgur.com/7fwIUzp.png

Now my pre-Windows 10 start screen feels ugly...

I know, right? The new one looks much more premium and modern.

This is promising. Developers come :)

Hopefully this not only springboards devs to porting over their coding but while they're at it with adding a line or two and tweaking a lil here and there for such things as the live tile, they find more things to tweak to make it even more Windows centric. I understand though that its more a means of quickly porting over code, not necessarily having the devs spend more time on it.

Did you Notice that there are 4 Tiles in the Windows Phone?

Just a few lines of code? Man, instagram and snap chat is gonna get it now >:(

So, "What are you waiting for?" #WP #LazyDevs Now we have an excuse to go NUCLEAR on them. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & everything else for that matter.
 

So i could download the .apk from an app from android and transfer it??

Nope

Please explain yourself! Like they show in the Video, they were just dropping th