Some iOS/Android Developers Not Excited About Porting Their Apps To Windows

[elwin lobo]

well this seems to be the problem.. the usual dislike for anything MS... if devs don't get onboard, then users will not get onboard either... however it could go either way.. in India for eg. Windows is doing pretty well and we have pretty great app support too...
the low end strategy is working extremely well here....

 

[jlzimmerman]

the devs at my job were like "that's bs, and who would want to develop on anything windows"

let's see who they call the next time their macs break, as my reply would be "who would want to touch an apple product on purpose" as i work on my surface pro 2!

Yeah, it is completely aggravating that regardless of how many users W/WP has, or how MS jumps over backwards, there are developers who will not touch it simply because MS just isn't, like, you know, cool. Tech bias runs deep these days.

 

[wokaz80]

Yeah, it is completely aggravating that regardless of how many users W/WP has, or how MS jumps over backwards, there are developers who will not touch it simply because MS just isn't, like, you know, cool. Tech bias runs deep these days.

i agree.
alienware 13 looks far cooler than any macbook and i dont understand why tech people still consider macbook sexy while it looks the same every year. as for durability, any thinkpad (maybe except the edge ones) still trumps macbook too (and i owned a 2008 macbook white and 2012 macbook pro, so my statement isnt BS)

as for software, tbh Windows > mac os x anytime. wont argue about iOS > WP but obviously mac os x isn't better than Windows. the design stays the same since Snow Leopard or even Leopard.

 

[ashram]

well, a lot of people still see microsoft the way they were 5-10 years ago. what they don't see is that google now is more like that, where as MS as of late has been looking and feeling like the google of old. thry seem to be close minded, seeing this ability to compile their apps as a windows phone only thing as opposed to EVERYTHING windows. Phone to tablet to PC, to XBOX, to IOT to Hololens to whatever MS may be cooking! They don't see the potential and seem to want to stay mobile only on ios and android.

 

[Torcher Death]

well this seems to be the problem.. the usual dislike for anything MS... if devs don't get onboard, then users will not get onboard either... however it could go either way.. in India for eg. Windows is doing pretty well and we have pretty great app support too...
the low end strategy is working extremely well here....

This is good for free & ad based apps, but the problem is the iOS & Android devs, after having seen big bucks at the other stores, feel there isn't much to be made from WP, cause majority here are on budget sets & are cheapskates (I plead guilty).
Now this is another reason as to why a flagship is required. Not just to show off the OS in all its glory, but also to prove that it can cater to all strata of users from the lowest of the low to the premium class.

 

[Harrie-S]

What I still miss here is the "sandboxing strategy" windows has.
One of the most asked app is for example an app locker like android but even if the android code can be easy "translated" to "windows" code the sandboxing is still a bottleneck. (I am bye the way not against sandboxing).

 

[stephen_az]

I guess you don't use Cortana? It was a featured Microsoft article this morning and people are openly quoted - nothing mysterious or conspiratorial about it at all. Actually there is more than one article but I believe the one in question is: How developers really feel about Microsoft welcoming iOS and Android. Opinions ranged from curiosity to mild interest to no interest, and a few they will be live it when they see it, with no one expressing any the excitement you see here or (ironically) among the people who are already Windows developers. Those are also very much the common themes in the comments.

As for people getting their hands on the tools, they point is they have no great interest. I expect some will give it a try out of curiosity but success presupposes that people want their apps on Windows and there was an impediment. The impediment, however, was not the tools - it was/is simply they don't see the point. Nothing has changed. Microsoft has simply made it easier to do something people have no interest in doing because of the reasons noted above, and a few others as well. Do your own homework before simply attacking something you do not like....

 

[stephen_az]

He is probably just trying to start a flame war or something. Pathetic beyond measure

The only persons attempting to start a flame war would appear to those throwing around negatives because the original post doesn't say what they want to hear. I have linked to one of the articles for the person since they do not have enough posts to do it. Did you miss that part of their post? BTW, as I noted I my other post, anyone who uses Cortana should have seen it in either the tech news or Microsoft news this morning. Ironically, Microsoft has made no effort to filter dissenting opinions whereas some people around here certainly seem to want to try....

 

[jojoe42]

Surely the costs of support and maintenance would be outweighed by the potential market of 1 billion devices. I mean like of course some apps would be useless on the xbone but it's the opportunity to reach a wider audience on different form factors. I think having settled in on other platforms some of the big companies are pretty content with their user base already (*cough* Snapchat *cough*)

 

[Jazmac]

Some devs were interviewed about this, and they say that its not worth it, mainly because:

• it is already easy to port, the problem is the manteinance and support
• the low market share don't woth the effort

Sorry, not allowed yet to post links because i'm new

LINK tip: mashable com TITLE How developers really feel about Microsoft welcoming iOS and Android

"Some devs" are not the development community so I would dismiss this claim out of hand completely. Anyway, not really surprizing to see a thread like this one here from the low post count pimps after the recent announcement from google's biggest fear, The Microsoft Juggernaut. Beyond that, Mashable is weak. They only post whatever gets them post clicks. That is how they have always been.

 

[coip]

If it is now almost effortless to port the entire app, wouldn't it also be just as effortless to maintain it (i.e. update it)? If so, their point about not wanting to port because it still takes a bunch of time to "maintain" the app will no longer be true, no?

 

[jleebiker]

I think people need to step back and look at the bigger picture. It's not just about WP and handsets, it's about Universal apps. Writing it once and running on a multitude of platforms. Microsoft, via Windows 10, is going to be the leader in allowing one app to run on any device it is thrown at; handset, tablet, laptop/desktop.
​
People have to look at the bigger picture.

 

[Jazmac]

I think people need to step back and look at the bigger picture. It's not just about WP and handsets, it's about Universal apps. Writing it once and running on a multitude of platforms. Microsoft, via Windows 10, is going to be the leader in allowing one app to run on any device it is thrown at; handset, tablet, laptop/desktop.
​
People have to look at the bigger picture.

Agreed.

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

I think people need to step back and look at the bigger picture. It's not just about WP and handsets, it's about Universal apps. Writing it once and running on a multitude of platforms. Microsoft, via Windows 10, is going to be the leader in allowing one app to run on any device it is thrown at; handset, tablet, laptop/desktop.
​
People have to look at the bigger picture.

I think people also need to be realistic as well. The universal apps we've already had, this is conceding defeat but trying to make it look pretty at the same time.

 

[neo158]

If it is now almost effortless to port the entire app, wouldn't it also be just as effortless to maintain it (i.e. update it)? If so, their point about not wanting to port because it still takes a bunch of time to "maintain" the app will no longer be true, no?

Exactly, King manage to maintain Candy Crush Saga on WP despite it being an iOS port.

 

[rhapdog]

I think people also need to be realistic as well. The universal apps we've already had, this is conceding defeat but trying to make it look pretty at the same time.

Completely different type of universal app. Currently, universal apps have separately maintained code bases for each device type, but have an "own on other devices" type of sales effort. The core of the program may have been the same, but the UI had to be different for each device. A pain to maintain. The new universal apps will be virtually identical in code with very few exceptions. Easy to maintain.

The terminology used ay be the same, but with vastly different meanings. It's been redefined in a big way here.

 

[wokaz80]

This is good for free & ad based apps, but the problem is the iOS & Android devs, after having seen big bucks at the other stores, feel there isn't much to be made from WP, cause majority here are on budget sets & are cheapskates (I plead guilty).
Now this is another reason as to why a flagship is required. Not just to show off the OS in all its glory, but also to prove that it can cater to all strata of users from the lowest of the low to the premium class.

"big bucks" is a debatable terms. Tbh average developers dont make much in mobile world, but the "big" developers always make a lot of money (basically the gap between the successful and the average is too big). In that mashable link, i think some of the app developers there are just making average amount of money, not "big bucks", hence why some of them said it's not worth it to put resource to work and update on windows platform, simply because they dont make a lot of money so their budget is limited. ofc im not saying big developers wouldn't ignore W10, some of them would definitely do, but I think in the end we can't really make assumption based on what some developers say, especially when these developers are just average developers

 

[wokaz80]

If it is now almost effortless to port the entire app, wouldn't it also be just as effortless to maintain it (i.e. update it)? If so, their point about not wanting to port because it still takes a bunch of time to "maintain" the app will no longer be true, no?

yes i dont get the reason behind the app developer who said this. after porting an app, if let's say you update your android app, you can easily update your windows app as well (to add the features that you added previously to the android app). you dont have to re-edit the parts that you edited earlier for the windows app launch, only the parts that you updated for the android app. basically just copy+paste it, or am I wrong?

I am not a coder but this is how I see it:
1. let's say the game name is fun marathon. I port it from android to windows 10 by editing some codes, let's say the last 10 lines of codes in 5 different files.
2. let's say I add new feature in fun marathon for android, for stage 12-20. For doing this, i add 100 lines of code in 10 different files. I can just copy paste the scripts of those stage 12-20 and add it to my fun marathon windows 10 project folder by editing the exact line of codes in the same files, right? because how I see it, the "part" that I needed to edit to port to Windows 10, i have done it previously when i release the game to Windows 10.

 

[oviedofreak82]

The way I see it, these devs are being ignorant and lazy. They're also many that don't see the fact that Windows 10 is a universal OS, so if you screw the phone user base thinking that there's no incentive for them, then they're not seeing the big picture the PC/laptop, Xbox and tablet communities. There are far more users there than on phones. To those devs who don't want to adopt, I wish them well; eventually they'll come to and realize the profit margin they're missing because they fail to adopt. This is truly remarkable; no other software company is going full scale like Microsoft has. This is the new Microsoft, not the domineering company of the 1990s and early 2000s.

 

[PepperdotNet]

Sure, some "phone apps" wouldn't be necessarily useful on "desktop machines" - but I would definitely say if there's a game that's fun to play on a tiny phone, it would be a much better experience on a Windows tablet with bigger screen and more resources.