Rumor: Microsoft could make it possible to run Android apps on Windows 10

Microsoft’s big developer conference is coming up next week, and while there normally wouldn’t be many implications for Android outside of announcements pertaining to their Office suite of apps, there’s even more reason to pay attention to this year’s conference.

Windows enthusiast blogger Paul Thurrott has revealed that Microsoft will most likely announce that Windows 10 will support Android apps. The details are slim, but we imagine it wouldn’t be much different than what Blackberry did a couple of years ago. The Canadian company created an Android runtime that would allow Android apps to run as long as the app was properly ported by a developer, a process which only took about 5 minutes of work.

Microsoft has struggled in the apps department to this point, with many developers opting to skip their platform altogether when it comes to mobile apps. The likely reason is that there simply isn’t a big enough user base on Windows Phone for developers to commit resources to. On the flipside, users aren’t going to want to use a platform that doesn’t have as many apps as the competition.

It’s your classic chicken or egg scenario: something has to come first, and it’s not crazy to suggest Microsoft believes that “something” has to be the apps. The onus is on them to attract developers and persuade them to build apps for their platform, and while Microsoft’s current efforts have been noble it simply hasn’t been enough.

Tell a developer they can port their pre-existing app to your platform in 5 minutes and the needle might finally move. That brings more apps, which brings more users, which ultimately might convince more developers to learn how to build native apps for the platform and make it the thriving marketplace it needs to be to survive in today’s mobile world.

This obviously won’t offer as great an app experience as an Android phone would, what with many apps taking advantage of Google Play Services’ unique APIs and services to create rich features. But a decent stable of apps to full a couple of gaps can’t hurt Microsoft more than they’re already hurting.

Microsoft is making a ROM that will transform your Android phone into a Windows Phone

Microsoft has been doing a lot of work to capture mind share by releasing many of their latest apps and services on Android, but the company could look to get the “market” share to go along with it in their latest move. TechCrunch reports Microsoft is working on a custom ROM that will emulate a Windows Phone 10 experience.

This won’t be some simple Metro-styled launcher, either — this is apparently going to operate as a full-blown operating system as if you had originally bought a Windows 10 phone with access to Microsoft’s wealth of apps and services.

Xiaomi has agreed to make their flagship MI 4 a testing platform for the projects, though the company is clear to note that this isn’t a “partnership” of sorts where Xiaomi will begin shipping Mi 4 units with Windows 10 instead of MIUI. Instead, this is a pure trial for only the most interested Mi 4 owners, and the opportunity to take part won’t be extended to everyone.

Microsoft issued the following statement regarding the program:

As part of the Windows Insider Program, Microsoft will partner with Xiaomi to offer Windows 10 free downloads to a select group of Xiaomi Mi4 users. Xiaomi Mi4 users will get the ability to flash their phones with the new Windows 10 OS and provide feedback to Xiaomi and Microsoft on their experience. This partnership will allow Xiaomi and Microsoft to get direct user feedback and continue to improve the experience for China. Microsoft is thrilled to see Xiaomi embracing Windows 10 and offering this great value to their customers. We’re excited to see the feedback we receive from this audience.

Xiaomi is a leading phone manufacturer in China undergoing significant global expansion. We are excited to partner with them in China and jointly gather feedback from Chinese users on their experience with Windows 10 to jointly collaborate on product and services development for the platform.

Availability will be announced in the months to come.

Microsoft’s motive for this interesting move isn’t clear. Is this meant to give users a taste of Windows 10 so Microsoft can entice them to buy into the real deal? Does Microsoft want to create an alternate platform for users to use and become a true device-agnostic platform that can be used on a wide variety of devices like their desktop operating system is? Are they simply bored? Who knows, but they have our ear either way and we can’t wait to see how well this project turns out to be once it’s available for folks to try out.

It’s official: Windows 10 can run Android apps… sort of

Yesterday, we heard about Microsoft’s plans to get Android apps to run on Windows 10. We likened the idea to Blackberry’s Android runtime used on their latest devices that allows Android developers to easily port their apps over.

Well, the news was true, but only to a degree. Microsoft has equipped developers with tools to easily port their Android and iOS apps to Windows 10, only this is no mere emulation or runtime. Instead, it’s a custom platform called Astoria that opens up Windows 10 development to a number of new languages.

For Android, developers can now code directly in C++ and Java to make sure they don’t have to write entirely new code bases from scratch. iOS developers will also be treated to support for Objective-C. Microsoft will make it extremely easy for developers to get comfortable developing for Windows using this SDK.

There are a couple of hurdles to consider, though you can be sure Microsoft was mindful about them. Namely, they recognize that not all developers can fully port their code base to Windows 10 without the help of some of Google’s proprietary services and APIs.

Microsoft says it’s their goal to build many of these types of services and tools themselves to fill in some of those gaps. It’s not all that dissimilar to Amazon and their Kindle Fire devices. While apps can be ported over to those devices in native fashion, Amazon still had to create their own APIs and platforms to fill in for the missing Google bits.

Whether this is going to be enough to fix Microsoft’s apps problem is still up in the air, but at least they’ve gone about trying to fix it it in a very creative, sensible and — honestly — exciting way. We hope to learn more soon.

[via The Verge]