Microsoft Makes It Easier to Bring Android and iOS Apps to Windows 10
I'm a full-time iOS developer and want to share my perspective on this news. The developers who create those amazing apps on iOS are not going to fall for this. I'm one of those developers, who pays very close attention to detail to make pixel perfect apps that I'm proud to put my signature on. I will not accept my brand being introduced on Windows or any other platform using a glorified code generator. If I want to bring an app to Windows, I would learn the platform, go "all in" and make my app as perfect on Windows as it is on iOS. This would require me to dig into all the SDK docs, understand the platform capabilities, learn the native APIs, deal with the challenges of supporting different form factors, and a lot more. There is simply no shortcut to a great app, and a developer who is proud of his app would not release something that a machine generates. A great app is not one that has been thrown together using abstracted APIs and a code generator. A great app is one in which the developer has written and/or analyzed every line of code to maximize the aesthetics and performance on the platform it is running on. Windows' code conversion isn't going to encourage the really good apps to migrate, although it might entice some cheap knockoffs or poorly designed apps to ship an equally poorly designed experience on Windows. So bottomline, I don't expect apps like Instagram to suddenly appear on Windows because of this.<p>Also, developers don't avoid Windows because it lacked a code conversion tool. If all it involved was learning a new language or porting some code, developers would do it, just like they learned to go from Objective C to Swift, or all the evolution of Cocoa Touch through the years.<p>Developers avoid Windows for far more complex, intangible reasons that go way beyond a code converter. There are all kinds of perceptions about Windows and Windows users that simply will not change because of this tool. The iOS developers I know will shrug off this announcement, and continue shipping their apps on iOS. I admire Microsoft for overcoming the technical challenges of creating this tool, but sadly they have not overcome the perception and mindset challenges of a dieing platform.