ARM support for extensions is also part of Redmond’s plans

Mar 14, 2016 07:47 GMT  ·  By

If you’re a Windows Phone or Windows 10 Mobile user, you’re probably quite tired of the word “soon,” as Microsoft has used it quite frequently to tell us when its new smartphone operating system is scheduled to go live.

And yet, here’s another thing that could see daylight soon, and this time, we also have confirmation from Microsoft: browser extensions on Windows 10 Mobile.

As we told you during the weekend, screenshots showing the first Edge browser extension in the store and enabled in the application got leaked, but there’s something a little bit more interesting than the photos itself. The store listing shows that ARM support for extensions is also coming, which could be a sign that browser add-ons could arrive on Windows 10 Mobile sooner than expected.

Mobile extensions when PC version is ready

First of all, Edge extensions will only land in June with the Redstone update, but insiders will get them a little bit sooner, most likely as part of the next release. But as far as Windows 10 Mobile is concerned, it’s not yet very clear if extensions can arrive on smartphones together with their PCs siblings or at a later time.

Previously, Microsoft engineers explained that extensions would arrive on mobile devices only after they are released on desktop computers, but it’s possible that this plan has since changed.

“We first need to bring them on the desktop version of the browser,” Sean Lyndersay and Charles Morris, both working for the Microsoft Edge team, said on the sidelines of the BUILD 2015 developer conference.

Certainly, more information on browser extensions will be provided at the upcoming BUILD developer conference later this month, but until that point, take this with a pinch of salt. Without a doubt, however, extensions will arrive on Windows 10 Mobile too, but it’s still impossible to predict when it is bound to happen.