14 DAY TRIAL // Developers abandoning Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile isn’t really something coming out of the blue, but today’s news is a bit more surprising because it involves one of the most-used apps across the two smartphone platforms.
The official Instagram app for Windows mobile devices has officially been retired and can no longer be downloaded from the Microsoft Store. Instagram recently received an update on Windows 10, and it looks like one of the changes implemented by this new version is removed support for Windows phones.
While the app listing has been removed from the Store, the Instagram app still works on devices where it’s already installed, but needless to say, no other updates would be released.
For the time being, an official confirmation from the parent company is not available and there’s hope that Instagram could return to Windows phones at some point in the future. It’s possible that Instagram is also making the switch to PWA, though again, no info is available in this regard.
The Microsoft Edge workaround
On the other hand, Windows 10 Mobile users who don’t want to switch to Android or iOS to continue running Instagram and all the other apps that are being pulled from Microsoft’s mobile OS can turn to the web-based version of the service.
Microsoft Edge works nicely with Instagram and pinning the website to the Start screen could be a way to cope with the removal of the third-party app, despite this clearly being a compromise forced by the current state of the platform.
Microsoft itself has already confirmed that no new features and devices are planned for Windows 10 Mobile, and sooner or later, pretty much all developers would abandon the platform. Instead, Android and iOS are obviously the preferred choices because this is where all the users are right now.
Windows 10 Mobile will continue receiving security updates until mid-2019, at which point Microsoft will officially pull support and abandon its mobile operating system once and for all.