Microsoft apparently wants Windows Phone to be ?a better Android than Android?

M0TH3R_FR4GG3R

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Peter Bright AKA Dr Pizza from Ars Technica has added some corroboration to Tom Warren’s claim that Microsoft is working on bringing Android apps to Windows Phone.

Posting on Twitter he said the combined OS he dubbed “Windows PhOS/2ne” after OS/2, an IBM OS which could run Windows apps, was “real and real stupid.”

It seems Windows Phone users should prepare for Android apps coming to Windows Phone as a real eventuality.

The news comes after Bright wrote an emphatic article where he argues “Android apps on Windows Phone would be an ugly capitulation.” Presumably he was informed afterwards that the battle has been lost already.

Another struggling mobile OS which went this route was Blackberry 10, and of course this did not really result in a surge in sales, and ultimately weakened the Blackberry 10 app ecosystem.

I have noticed a real closing of the “App Gap” recently, with Windows Phone apps being launched closer and closer to their iOS and Android counterparts, and Windows Phone apps being on the road map of developers in most cases.

The plans for Android apps appear to be based on a somewhat outdated situation.
 

Ma1dere

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Having two sources like these we can pretty much say that it's confirmed.
What's realy bad, because, like OP said, another company that tried to solve the app problem like that is Blackberry. As we all know, Blackberry is doing extremely "well".
There will be absolutely NO reason for developers to make native apps for WP. There will be absolutely NO reason for customers to buy WP handsets instead of Android ones. The whole Goole Play store is a mess, non-native apps will run like crap and won't follow Metro style guildlines.
Not saying that it's a spit on Nokia's corpse (burning platform my a**, Elop).
 

fonix232

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Having two sources like these we can pretty much say that it's confirmed.
What's realy bad, because, like OP said, another company that tried to solve the app problem like that is Blackberry. As we all know, Blackberry is doing extremely "well".
There will be absolutely NO reason for developers to make native apps for WP. There will be absolutely NO reason for customers to buy WP handsets instead of Android ones. The whole Goole Play store is a mess, non-native apps will run like crap and won't follow Metro style guildlines.
Not saying that it's a spit on Nokia's corpse (burning platform my a**, Elop).

The thing is, Android apps will NEVER run as good on any phone, including WP, as native apps. BB didn't fail because they dragged in the Android framework - they failed because they did not adapt in time. MS, on the other hand, is keeping their market share, which is not an easy task, especially now as Android took over the majority.


And yes, there will be reasons why to buy WP. It will run native WP apps, and the users will be able to get the Android counterpart if there isn't one yet. It's kind of win-win.

Also MS could heavily control which Android apps can be installed on the platform, just like they do with the native ones.
 

twint7787

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all these threads need to be merged. Anyway, this will effectively kill WP app development. It is not a good idea as they already laid out in that Ars Technica article...sigh
 

thelostsoul

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It depends very highly on how they role it out. For a while, BlackBerry 10 had compatibility with Android apps, but you had to jump through hoops to get an APK (android app file) installed. Then developers were able to create cheap ports of their apps that ran the Android version with little modifications. This enabled developers to quickly put out releases for BB10 and quickly release them into the BB10 official app store. It resulted in a fast-growing app store, but users were still frustrated that they couldn't find all the apps they wanted very easily, and apps were not coming to the app store as fast as they were to Android and iOS.

If Microsoft says "You can install any APK file on your device" - well, we would then have amazing access to any app we want. Unfortunately, it would lead to WP users pirating apps from the Android app store, and many users running apps from very untrustworthy sources. This is very unlikely of Microsoft as it would compromise security and scare aware corporate customers.

If Microsoft decides to allow apps to be compiled easily from APKs, but must be built into a wrapper and submitted to the regular app store, the same situation that happened in BB10 will happen to WP. We will have almost no apps built for WP and the app store would fall apart. The apps could be distinguished as "Android" or "Not Native" or something, but developers wouldn't really care if they can make an app work almost as well.

They will have to limit some API access, but I would be intrigued to see if apps get access to things that have historically been limited by WP. For example, would the official Pebble app have access to incoming messages and be able to push alerts to their smartwatch? I would doubt it, but it would be interested to see the level of access provided to such apps.
 

Mark_Venture

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I used OS/2 when 2.0 was beta... up until IBM basically stopped supporting it at Warp 4.0. OS/2 was "a better windows than windows" at that time. It could multi task very well. (Formatting a floppy or printing in Windows brought everything else in the system to a hault, where as OS/2 you couldn't tell anything else was going on). OS/2 was a 32bit OS.

When OS/2 Warp 3 was released, the first version supporting Windows 16 bit API's, I was surprised and confused. It was meant to be a stop gap to bring apps to OS/2 while showing developers OS/2 development tools. But I always questioned... why would anyone develop in essence a 2nd product (app) for OS/2 if you could run the Windows version under it? I was pretty much right. The amount of Windows apps ported or written for OS/2 didn't really change. And OS/2 eventually died.

I asked the same question when I found out BB10 could easily convert android APK's to BAR files and load them up, and now it can just install native APK's without any conversion, and even support for the Amazon Android app store coming. Why is anyone going to take the time to write native apps? Not going to happen.

I fear the same for Windows Phone :(
 

Ma1dere

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The thing is, Android apps will NEVER run as good on any phone, including WP, as native apps. BB didn't fail because they dragged in the Android framework - they failed because they did not adapt in time. MS, on the other hand, is keeping their market share, which is not an easy task, especially now as Android took over the majority.



And yes, there will be reasons why to buy WP. It will run native WP apps, and the users will be able to get the Android counterpart if there isn't one yet. It's kind of win-win.

Also MS could heavily control which Android apps can be installed on the platform, just like they do with the native ones.

I didn't say that BB failed because they dragged in the Android framework. It's a syndrome.
About this control from MSFT on what will and won't run on WP - what's the reason for ANY developer to make a native WP app if he can sit on his *** and at some point Microsoft will have to let his Android app on WP.
Awesome hardware can be a selling point, but both 63x and icon/930 are uninspired and dull. I'm not quite sure about this 3d touch phone either, especially considering Microsoft dropping mandatory Kinect for Xbox one.
 

Moiz Mian

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The only thing I have against Android is that everything is laggy. But if it's supposed to be a better Android than Android, maybe that means that it'll have some custom runtime that will make the apps run better on WP than they run on Android. If this is the case, I'd be all for it. Otherwise, if it's going to be glitchy and laggy, then I don't want them.
 

bilzkh

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Someone mentioned this elsewhere on the forum, but it'd be better for Microsoft to allow developers to use its tools and languages to build iOS and Android apps in a manner that makes it easy for them to port those apps to Windows/Windows Phone.
 

SnailUK

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Someone mentioned this elsewhere on the forum, but it'd be better for Microsoft to allow developers to use its tools and languages to build iOS and Android apps in a manner that makes it easy for them to port those apps to Windows/Windows Phone.

The issue with WP has always been developers either don't want to develop for WP, or see no value in it.

Why would Microsoft creating tools to make it easier to write WP apps change that? Microsoft have already written numerous FAQs on how to do it. Are Google going to start using Microsoft tools to create their own apps? Are Microsoft's tools for writing Android apps going to be better than Google's? I doubt it.
 

gelatus

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I agree with Peter Bright on this one, it is really stupid. If I wanted to run Android apps, I'd buy an Android device. I am pretty sure this will hurt WP development, in fact it will probably deal it a fatal blow. If Microsoft is spending resources in making an Android compatibility layer, it means they're not spending those resources in making WP APIs better. You can't focus on two incompatible things at the same time, something has to be sacrificed. If this is true, my Lumia 920 will be my last Windows Phone.
 

Al4video

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So does this mean that there will be no more Windows apps? Or does it mean that you will just have the option t o install Android apps as well?
 

Dratwister

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So does this mean that there will be no more Windows apps? Or does it mean that you will just have the option t o install Android apps as well?

Either way, if this's a real truth then WP apps would be doomed to hell :3 Seriously, why should anyone dev for WP anymore while they can just dev for Android.
 

flyingsolid

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The reason to make native apps would be access to APIs and avoid problems created by Google Services. BlackBerry users are running into the same problem, and unless Microsoft tunnels every single Android API, some Android apps will need native alternatives. The question is if those functional Android apps will improve device sales and experience or if the native development is uniquely important to the platform. This is where BlackBerry 10 benefits from having similar design guidelines (used loosely) to Android than does Windows Phone. Comparing this move to BlackBerry would also be problematic as they have not made the preinstalled Amazon App Store widely available... and the company has objectives which differ from Microsoft's.
 

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