[Slovenix]

Probably because people were anticipating being able to just grab android apk's and running whatever app they wanted. Islandwood would be my choice too from an app quality standpoint at the very least.

Exactly.

[Slovenix]

I dont even care for Astoria anymore. I want apps not emulators

[Spectrum90]

This is really bad news. Astoria would have provided many easy ports, specially for smaller apps.

IslandWood require a lot more work. Most developers won't bother with it.

[elindalyne]

This is really bad news. Astoria would have provided many easy ports, specially for smaller apps.

IslandWood require a lot more work. Most developers won't bother with it.

I disagree there... They're not just targeting phones with Islandwood, they're targeting all Windows 10 devices.

[Spectrum90]

I disagree there... They're not just targeting phones with Islandwood, they're targeting all Windows 10 devices.

You mean a bigger user base could attract developers?

That has been discussed many times. People don't use apps on the PC and Windows tablet sales are low. This could change but It takes time, maybe years.

With Astoria Microsoft was taking responsibility of doing most of the work of porting apps and developers needed to do a little or zero work. Astoria was an easy path to port apps to WP, without Astoria things are a lot more difficult.

[Kevin Rush]

I wish there was something we (I) could do to vastly speed up the delivery of fully functioning Islandwood with a proactive program of incentives for developers to participate and maintain the apps that we want. A kickstarter type program? It would have to be "hard to turn down". Do something, and fast. I would invest. Ideas?

Best wishes.

[elindalyne]

The project is open source. Any dev with the knowledge and interest can help the project.
https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC/

[a5cent]

Probably because people were anticipating being able to just grab android apk's and running whatever app they wanted. Islandwood would be my choice too from an app quality standpoint at the very least.

Now that you mention it, I feel stupid for not having thought of that myself. I'd bet you're right. I never thought of it because that's not how it will actually work, but I'm sure that's what many were expecting.

[Asskickulater]

Up until now it was hard to find anybody on WCentral even mentioning Islandwood.



It was all about the inferior, and for the UWP potentially deadly (and therefore dangerous for the entire W10 ecosystem), Astoria. I'm glad we've finally turned that corner.

That more because we had a leaked version of Astoria that gave us the chance to toy with it, islandwood is beautiful, but its not really anything we can buzz about currently.

[a5cent]

That more because we had a leaked version of Astoria that gave us the chance to toy with it, islandwood is beautiful, but its not really anything we can buzz about currently.

That sounds reasonable until you realize that Astoria was the far more popular topic long before anything Astoria related ever leaked. That difference in popularity has existed since the project's announcements. It's not a recent development.

[Asskickulater]

huh.. didn't notice much on it 'til it leaked aside from anouncements, which I thought was porting not emulating at the time so... in this case then, I say for me it was the fact that I was able to mess with it, I look forward much more to islandwood though, IOS apps generally are 1st class.

[DEATH INC]

Yeah for a truly unified OS across platforms you need apps that run natively across the entire spectrum, not patchy emulation than might not even work right given many apps on android are tied to google services and do not work properly without them.

[Cruachan 11]

There was more buzz about Astoria because Android APKs could be sideloaded and run "natively" under W10M, rather than Islandwood which requires recompilation and therefore access to the source code.

It seems that Astoria was causing lots of the performance degredation that has been seen, and there are also rumours of there being a massive risk of litigation from Google with the way Astoria was implemented - remember the Windows 98 era native Java Virtual Machine that had to removed? To this day Windows 98 is not available from MSDN due to this issue.

[Arunabha Goswami]

Now that Astoria's out of the picture (for now, at least), expect to see a lot of posts explaining why it was the worst thing ever and W10 is much better without it and Islandwood is the real savior.

[Harrie-S]

I "understand" that people want android apps but what I still do not understand, even if Astoria was still "alive" is how it would "work". For example an applocker. In windows this can "not be done" due to OS restrictions. So how would it be possible for Astoria to get this done.
So even if Astoria was alive and kicking a "lot" of "needed" app could not be "ported" anyhow due to OS restrictions.

[a5cent]

Now that Astoria's out of the picture (for now, at least), expect to see a lot of posts explaining why it was the worst thing ever and W10 is much better without it and Islandwood is the real savior.

You can easily prove yourself wrong by looking at my post history. I've always argued that Astoria is a terrible idea.

[henocksandy]

I have most of the Apps i use in Windows store but only few missing like Snapchat and Kik. But i still want them to do it. Astoria is just not worth it. Android lags and i don't want that to come on Windows! Windows can be a unique platform with unique apps.

[Jack Neill]

I just want my bank app back and I'm good with W10M.

[Arunabha Goswami]

You can easily prove yourself wrong by looking at my post history. I've always argued that Astoria is a terrible idea.

Since I never said that there was not a single negative post about Astoria before, your post history doesn't really have to do anything with what I wrote.
Just look at this thread before and after the announcement about Astoria and you'll know what I mean.

[yanpaulo]

Well, what I see here is: Most of people here (users/developers) didn't exactly want Astoria all along.
Even I was kind of afraid about app quality/look when Astoria would come out, although I was kinda excited to see popular apps coming to Windows (and along with apps, users).

In the end, most of us didn't want Astoria. But question is: wasn't Astoria really needed?

[sheldon cohn]

With the number of apps coming out that doesn't work on Windows phones is only hurting
the desire for people to wanting to buy the Windows phone. The design is great, but when one
can't achieve what the other phones can, it hurts the Windows phone sales by word of mouth.
Giving up on the Android Emulator was another bad move, since that would give the Windows
phone a boost, because it will be able to do those apps.