Windows Bridge for iOS Preview now available for download

Aug 7, 2015 01:00 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft, through Kevin Gallo, has had the great pleasure of announcing the immediate availability of a preview version of the Windows Bridge for iOS app that lets developers port their existing iOS to the Windows Store.

Previously known as Project Islandwood and also dubbed WinObjC, the Windows Bridge for iOS app was open sourced on August 6, 2015, distributed under the MIT license on GitHub, and enhanced with support for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 applications, as well as support for iOS API compatibility. Future updates of the iOS bridge will also include support for the ARM architecture so that you can build mobile apps as well.

"We’re releasing the iOS bridge as an open-source project under the MIT license. Given the ambition of the project, making it easy for iOS developers to build and run apps on Windows," says Kevin Gallo. "While the final release will happen later this fall (allowing the bridge to take advantage of new tooling capabilities that will ship with the upcoming Visual Studio 2015 Update), we are making the bridge available to the open-source community now in its current state."

The final release of Windows Bridge for iOS comes later this fall

While the final version of the Windows Bridge for iOS app will be unveiled later this fall, bringing support for the new tooling capabilities that will be implemented in the forthcoming Visual Studio 2015 Update IDE (Integrated Development Environment), Microsoft invites all iOS developers to brag about their creations published on the Windows Store via the company's @WindowsDev Twitter account.

Detailed installation instructions and a getting started guide for iOS developers who want to port their existing code to the Windows Store for the Windows 10 operating system can be found on the GitHub page of the project, along with a roadmap for what's coming in the final release of the Windows Bridge for iOS application, and recommended documentation.