14 DAY TRIAL // Long-time Windows phone fans are certainly used to developers waving goodbye to their platform, so a similar decision coming from UK bank Halifax shouldn’t be such a big surprise.
Halifax has decided to pull its app for Windows phones and focus entirely on Android and iOS, leaving those who continue sticking with Microsoft’s mobile platform with the only option of accessing their accounts in the browser.
Users launching the app are provided with a message telling them to connect to the website using their browsers, and the store link no longer seems to be available.
Although there’s no mention on its website regarding the Windows phone decision, the company says in an article regarding apps available on BlackBerry that its focus is only Android and iOS. BlackBerry devices are also lacking a Halifax app.
“We decided to develop this app for customers with iPhone or Android mobiles. If you have a Blackberry mobile you can access Online Banking simply and securely via your mobile browser. We'll continue to make improvements to our Mobile Banking services and provide new features,” the bank says.
Fortunately, the bank’s decision to pull the app isn’t such a big hit for Windows phones, mostly because the client hasn’t received an update in years and it was mostly a web wrapper that did the same thing as the browser version. The mobile site works pretty well right now, and this is your only option to access accounts.