In some stranger news, rumours have emerged that Microsoft may be considering allowing Android apps to run on both Windows (i.e. the desktop variant) and also Windows Phone. Sources familiar with Microsoft have told The Verge as much, stating that Microsoft favours the idea of simply allowing Android apps inside its existing operating system/ecosystem, while others believe it could lead to the death of the (already flagging) OS.
Android is undoubtedly more successful than Microsoft’s mobile operating system; it’s everywhere, it’s overtaken iOS as the most common mobile platform, and it has the app support behind it as you’d expect. Mainstream apps come for iOS and Android, but Windows Phone is often considered too niche to develop for, and so the platform misses out.
There’s a tonne of speculation (and it really is nothing more than that) about how precisely this could work, with Microsoft possibly able to borrow from BlueStacks’ technology, which allows Android apps to run on the Windows desktop platform already. It could also use hardware-level emulation, which has been developed elsewhere, but if you ask us, the problem is elsewhere.
One can’t imagine that Google is likely to allow Windows Phone users to access the Google services necessary to get things like the Play Store working, perhaps leaving Android on Windows (if it ever does eventuate) as a significantly poorer cousin to those running Android natively.
This could either throw Windows Phone a line (maybe), or lead to a faster switch of Windows Phone users to Android instead (seems more likely).
What are your thoughts?
