14 DAY TRIAL // There's been a lot of talk surrounding Microsoft's Project Astoria and Project Islandwood, which are meant to bring Windows Phone users more apps they can take advantage of.
We reported earlier this week that Project Astoria might be canned at some point, so Windows Phone users might not get Android apps on their phones after all.
However, Microsoft is determined to go ahead and finalize Project Islandwood that will allow Windows Phone users to run iPhone and iPad apps on their smartphones.
Today, the Redmond-based company took it on its official blog to offer more details on where they are and where they are headed with Windows Bridge for iOS project.
Since its release back in August, the community's response towards Windows Bridge for iOS has been fantastic. Lots of issues have been fixed, and Microsoft has confirmed it received “a number of high-quality pull requests, many of which we've already accepted.”
Microsoft went on to say that its engineers continued to release fixes, updates and new features on a regular basis.
The following features received support since the release of Windows Bridge for iOS back in August: GLKit, Xibx, AutoLayout & Storyboard, KVO/KVC, and new sample projects.
New features are only possible with the help of iOS devs
The main objective of the project is to make it easier for iOS devs to create great Windows apps while reusing much of their existing Objective-C code and iOS development skills.
Regarding the direction the project is headed to, Microsoft says that it's now working on an automatic app analyzer. Currently, the app is in the process of testing, but Microsoft has confirmed it needs the devs’ help.
“In the coming weeks, we’ll be adding downloadable evaluation virtual machines (VMs) to our new site and from Dev Center. We’ll offer the VMs in four pre-configured packages for different virtualization environments: Parallels, VMWare, VirtualBox and Hyper-V.
“Each flavor will be refreshed once a month with the latest version of Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition, Windows IoT Core, Windows Bridge for iOS, Windows SDK, and all the Universal Windows Platform samples,” explains Nick Gerard, program manager, Windows Bridge for iOS.