No plan for a Windows 10 universal app just yet

Jul 7, 2016 04:22 GMT  ·  By

If you’re a loyal Windows Phone user, you probably know that the last few weeks have brought us both good and bad news about apps developed for the platform, and today’s we continue this mix with another sad report.

CNN becomes the latest big name to abandon Windows Phone, as the company has announced in a statement that it will be retiring its app for this platform on July 18. Just like everyone else, including here PayPal and Amazon, CNN recommends Windows Phone users to connect to its website should they want to read news from its service.

“This application will be retired on Monday, July 18. Thank you for being a loyal CNN user. Please visit our mobile web site to continue to get the latest domestic and international news: www.cnn.com,” CNN explains in its farewell message.

Still no sign of universal app

At this point, there’s still no indication of a possible Windows 10 universal app developed by CNN, even though this would certainly make sense. CNN is one of the largest news services in the world, and with Windows 10 growing every month, a universal app that would focus primarily on PCs (but that would also support mobile phones) would definitely come in handy to everyone.

Unfortunately, the company has remained tight-lipped on such a plan, so if you were using CNN’s news app on Windows Phone, you have just two options: you can either use the website to read the latest news or turn to Microsoft’s built-in News app, which is getting an important makeover these days.

Microsoft is working to make the News app significantly better - and this seems to become some sort of trend these days, as Apple is also doing the same thing in iOS 10, so you might not miss the CNN app too much after its departure.

But if we look at the bigger picture, CNN’s decision to leave Windows Phone is not at all encouraging for the future of the platform, at least not with so many other big names doing the same thing. Hopefully, more universal apps will launch in the coming months to slow down this migration.