14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone users may or may not like the fact that Microsoft will bring Android apps on their smartphones. Although the decision hasn’t been made yet, more and more rumors indicate that Microsoft is likely to allow Windows Phone users to run Android apps and games on their devices.
This isn’t something new, as the first details regarding Microsoft’s move emerged earlier this year, but after the acquisition of Nokia’s mobile and services division, the Redmond-based company is in need for a solid apps ecosystem.
Unfortunately, as it is now, Windows Phone Store can’t fulfill users’ thirst for new apps, and that will probably never happen as long as developers create apps for Android and iOS first and, eventually, much later, port them to Windows Phone.
Even though the number of applications in Windows Phone Store has increased consistently over the past couple of months, up to around 255k, it stands no chance of reaching Google Play or App Store.
Obviously, many Windows Phone fans would argue that Google Play store is host to many apps that introduce malware on smartphones, but this isn’t the issue here, and Microsoft seems to have understood that, in order to stop Windows Phone users from switching to Android, it needs to make Android apps available to them.
As I have mentioned earlier, this decision ultimately belongs to Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, who will determine if Windows Phone users will be offered the option to install Android apps on their devices or not.
But the first steps seem to have already been taken by Microsoft, as the company is rumored to have adopted the VM (virtual machine) with which Windows Phone users will be able to run Android applications and games.
According to the latest rumors, the VM will be supported on all Lumia smartphones, so anyone owning such a device will be able to run both Windows Phone and Android apps.
If Microsoft decides to follow BlackBerry’s decision to make Android apps available to its users, there will be certain consequences that the company should be prepared for.
A direct result of such a decision would be the decrease of new Windows Phone apps published in the Store, as many developers will only create Android /iOS apps that would then be easily tweaked to run on Windows Phone via this VM, instead of just creating a new version of that app specifically designed for the Windows Phone UI.
However, this shouldn’t hurt Microsoft too much, given the fact that the company is already investing lots of resources into convincing developers to make apps for Windows Phone, and the results are not on par with the level of time and money the company is putting in.
On the other hand, all Windows Phone users owning a Lumia phone would suddenly have access to Android apps and games, which would be immensely useful in the short term.
First of all, these users will stop complaining that they are the last to get some of the most popular apps and games, or that they do not get them at all. This means they’ll be less tempted to switch to Android if they want to be able to run certain apps.
Making Android apps available on Windows Phone devices will eliminate one of the major advantages Google’s mobile platform has over Microsoft’s.
The main problem is no one has a suitable VM that would be 100% capable of running Android apps on other platforms. BlackBerry is a good example, as many Android apps simply do not run as they should.
Ultimately, it’s the users who will have the most to gain if Microsoft is successful in implementing an intuitive and quick method of installing Android apps on Lumia devices running Windows Phone.
It remains to be seen if Microsoft considers that it would be more beneficial for the Windows Phone ecosystem to include Android apps to some degree, or not.
What do you think about being able to run Android apps on your Nokia Lumia phone? Do you find such an option beneficial to you?