“Microsoft’s plan to make its new version of Windows a mobile hit by letting it accept tweaked Apple and Android apps has met an obstacle: some of the software developers the company needs to woo just aren’t interested,” Bill Rigby reports for Reuters. “”
“To boost sales of its phones and new operating system, Microsoft said last month that it would provide tools to software developers to make it easier to design apps for Windows based on apps that run on Android or Apple. But because so few people use a Windows phone, most developers remain focused on the more popular systems and don’t see a need to develop apps for Windows,” Rigby reports. “They also said they doubt how easy the new tools will be to use.”
“Even though only a handful of developers have been allowed a sneak preview of the new tools Microsoft says it’s preparing, most doubt it will be easy to take iOS and Android apps to Windows. Concerns include how the Windows app will use batches of pre-written software, called libraries, that an app needs to run, and the prospects that Apple’s new language, called Swift, may soon eclipse the current one,” Rigby reports. “Recent history hasn’t been on Microsoft’s side. Last year Pinterest pulled its Windows Phone test app, and this year Chase and Bank of America stopped supporting Windows phone apps, saying few customers were affected.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Karma sure is one beautiful bitch!
As we wrote last month when Microsoft announced their big “plan”:
As with just about everything they do, Microsoft’s attempt to knife Apple’s Swift baby is simply too late. Desperation breeds laughable futility.
Hear that? (total silence punctuated by the occasional cricket chirp) That’s the sound of iOS developers clamoring to port their apps to phones that nobody uses.
The shoe’s on the other foot now, Mickeyslop. Enjoy your inexorable decline. We certainly are. Immensely. 🙂
Related articles:
Beleaguered Microsoft’s desperate embrace of iOS and Android is a stupid idea – April 30, 2015
Desperate Microsoft announces tool for porting iOS apps to Windows Phones – April 29, 2015
Satya Nadella? Seriously, Microsoft? – January 31, 2014
Personally I’d think Microsoft would be better suited targeting their phones at people who don’t install a lot of apps, who just want something that does the basics well and who can’t afford an iPhone. The success of android shows that there is a market, but it’s fragmentation and resulting complexity would surely put a lot of people off. Windows phones seem to be relatively good products nowadays, certainly if iOS didn’t existing I’d be inclined to look at it over Android. Lumping ported versions of apps from other systems just means you will never be as good as those other systems and you’re just diluting any quality you may inherently have. I really don’t know who MS are targeting at the moment.
In other words, Microsoft should split Nokia off into its own company & let it concentrate on its own OS and hardware. I agree!
So why does MS continue to try in vain to get its app store off the ground? Because taking 30% of each app sale is how Apple got rich.
MS made two fatal flaws: First, it bumbled every mobile software release assuming that consumers needed PDAs when they obviously want media players with phone capability. Second, MS continues to sell its phones as if they were entirely dependent on “the cloud” and Office. Salespeople go to great lengths to drive you to OneDrive instead of syncing your files to your local Mac or PC. But then, now Apple does too and it sucks. Apple is crippling iPad sales because it is so stingy on memory capacity and because its iTunes syncing directly to a Mac is slow, uninformative, and no longer user friendly. Apple should be worried that Windows phones are actually pretty well built, often with better cameras. And for those people who actually believe in renting server space from Big Brother, MS OneDrive actually works much better than Apple’s restrictive and flaky iCloud. This indisputable reality should give Apple fans reason to keep their hubris in check. It’s not like MS is dead — they are firmly entrenched in business and enterprise and are delivering pros the support they need. Meanwhile, what are the top 10 iOS apps listed to the right? Mostly cheap games. Hardly the foundation of a strong computing platform.
The problem is that capitalism, for all its benefits, always eventually results in a market that consolidates into a duopoly or where legal, a regulated monopoly. MS was too late to the app store, and therefore they are not likely to ever be part of the duopoly … unless Apple screws up or MS changes its stupid OneDrive requirement.
“Because taking 30% of each app sale is how Apple got rich.”
Mike, do you have any idea of how much it costs to create, maintain and staff an online software sales house? If you studied Apples financial records each quarter, you will find that the App Store brings in very little profit compared to any other product.
Next time, keep your fingers off the keyboard until you get a few facts together.
@Mike spoken like a true Microsoft employee or someone who has their head in the sand. “MS OneDrive actually works much better than Apple’s restrictive and flaky iCloud. This indisputable reality should give Apple fans reason to keep their hubris in check.”
As to your “Mostly cheap games” comment. Who’s making more profit? Hmm that’s right Apple. Who’s selling more phones? Hmm that’s right Apple. Who’s market cap is the largest in the world by a large margin? Hmm that’s right Apple.
I thought so Windows loser.
The sooner everyone on the planet considers Microsoft to be truly irrelevant can not come too soon for me.
One has to wonder “why?” Why would any rational consumer cheer the decline of competition? Were you personally affected by any real or imagined slight by MS, or just contributing to the Internet echo chamber?
Almost every worker drone on the planet has been forced to use that Microsoft crap.
Now, there are other options from Google and Apple and the world rejoices.
Microsoft must forget about good enough and make better software or die.
Microsoft has never made better. Does anybody think they will start making better now?
Certainly won’t be encouraging half assed reworked versions or other’s apps thats for sure.
Just checked with “the world” myself…didn’t find any rejoicing. Hyperbole much?
MS focus has been enterprise and backwards compatibility – it’s bread-and-butter. Despite Linux in-roads at the server level, there’s a reason that Windows is still the vastly dominant enterprise platform, and it doesn’t have anything to do with “worker drone” forced labor. It works for business, and there are no other platforms that offer anywhere near the breadth and depth. Any firms running pure Linux or OSX shops are firmly in the minority and/or represent specialized domains.
“[MS] has never made better.” Yeah? – more echo chamber cacophony? Outside any Ivory Towers in the real world, the majority of the tech world seems to agree that MS is decidedly and rapidly improving.
Ignore/deride MS at your discretion, but would recommend against cheering for their demise. One, you’re sure to be disappointed. Two, that reality, should it come to pass, would have a decidedly chilling effect on competition.
Microsoft has historically had enough of a chilling effect on the competition all by itself, thank you very much.
Because, as Jobs so obviously stated, Microsoft has no taste. Even in a world where taste is relative, Microsoft still has no taste. And, seriously, Microsoft has _never_ been ‘competition’. It has always been a bully. Good riddance.
Microsoft achieved their previous successes through years of shady, underhanded tactics, NOT by creating superior products. Most longtime Apple fans want them to get what we feel they deserve.
Didn’t Microsoft once stage a mock funeral for the iPhone?
That mock funeral for the iPhone was to their everlasting self-humiliation comeuppance. Funny how we don’t see that kind of presumed market direction hubris coming from them anymore.
It’s like the gods or fates determined they needed to be taught a rough & tough lesson in humility. Then, BANG!
I’d far rather Microsoft displaced Android as the #2 mobile OS. Phone 8.1 is actually pretty decent and employs some original ideas. Android is just a vector for gathering salable information about its users.
May I Cram Retro OS Overblown Fsking Trash down anyone else’s throat??? Please??? Anyone????
NO Fsking CHANCE BILL! .
OUCH!
What would developers ever wish to develop for rounding error smart phones? Nothing in it for them but everything in it for Microsoft, so far a non-player in this space and attractive to few except for a few misguided, entrenched and mental health challenged Redmond fans.
I’d love to see another Microsoft employee statistics breakout and the Apple/Android vs Windows phones ratio the employees use as consumers buying their own devices. I have a feeling it wouldn’t be pretty.
My wish for Android and MS is the same. May they both prosper and each take no more than 8-10% of the market.
What happened to that too-cute-by-half Microsoft funeral for the iPhone. I remember it well. MS employees that looked like they’d never even had a date, all dressed up like children at Halloween – holding a mock funeral for the iPhone since, you know, the Windows Phone was of course going to bury Steve Jobs’ baby.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Windows Phone in the real world, and the only Android phones I ever see are in the hands of trashy people who are as ignorant of technology as you can possibly imagine. In fact, they quite often happen to be members of races who have very little in the way of technological and civilizational accomplishments.
There’s no need to make this about race.
Well you should tell that to liberals then, since they make EVERYTHING about race. They turned on the spigot, but they don’t get to pick and choose when we turn it off. If they want to obsess over race – and they do – then I’ll be happy to play along.
Well, Bob, why don’t you do us all a favor and demonstrate better behavior than these “liberals” you so disdain? From my perspective, you’re the pot calling the kettle black. This is an Apple forum. Please stick to the topic or find a hyper-political race forum where you can roll in the mud with the self-absorbed lowlives there.
Every class has a lowest score student. Every family has a ‘crazy uncle.’ Every gene pool has a bottom dweller. We have bereanbob. 😆
That is not a refutation.
In order to refute me, you have to demonstrate that I was FACTUALLY wrong!
Good luck!
I already DID stick to the topic. Go back and re-read my post, you friggin’ moron.
Also, it’s “lowlifes,” not “lowlives.”
Imagine that: An imbecile presuming to lecture me when what he ought to be doing is suing the public education system for letting him down.
There’s no need to make this about politics.
Maybe the developers are upset that Microsoft isn’t going to provide the physical/home address of the person downloading their app like Google does…you know – because “it’s open”.
I love how apple is always releasing 2 half baked phones barley improved from the previous one every about 6 months what’s the use of buying one of its gonna be replaced 6 months later
Well, AMF, what is the correct release schedule? Seems to me that just about every phone maker these days is attempting to push out a new model every year.
I feel that Apple is too slow at getting its models out the door. It’s 4″ iPhone 5S model is 2 years old and looks like it is 4 years old, and the cheap plastic 5C is about as rare as a Windows phone.
Huh? I regularly see people with 5C phones in my area (almost exclusively early 20s and younger,) and Windows phones are extremely rare.
It’s mainly because uncle Ballmer-Fester hasn’t done his developers developers developers monkey-boy dance in a long while.