We will be able to enjoy using Candy Crush Saga and Dubsmash on Windows soon! A game-changing announcement from Microsoft from their keynote speech at the Build Conference today includes four new options for developers to add content into the Windows Universal Store, including importing Android and iOS apps straight-up without much code editing.
This means that iOS and Android app developers can pretty much port their apps directly by allowing the use of Java, C++, and Objective C software to run on the newest OS. The idea is pretty much simple: to get as many apps as possible to hop onto the Redmond Giant’s new platform, compatibility issues notwithstanding, by recompiling it through Visual Basic, replacing the APIs with Microsoft’s, and launching it onto the Windows Store.
Aside from allowing Java/C++ and Objective C, the Redmond Giant has also allowed compiling web-based apps and those that are based from .NET and Win32 to be available on the Store. .NET and Windows 32 apps will have a dedicated section for them, and will be available starting with the launch of Adobe Photoshop Essentials on the Windows Store.
“With Apple you choose to invest in iOS and OS X. With Google it’s Android or Chrome OS. Windows is the only platform that lets you bring apps to all these devices efficiently,” said Terry Myerson.
New updates seen at the conference highlights phone apps running on desktop, as well as seamless integration of Universal apps from desktop to mobile and XBox. In two to three years, Microsoft expects that the incentives it had laid out in previous keynote speeches will pave way to dissolving fragmentation issues and create an estimated 1 Billion devices running on the Windows 10.
