14 DAY TRIAL // It’s a tough year for Windows Phone fans, as more high-profile developers seem to be ready to abandon Microsoft’s mobile platform, obviously because of the declining market share.
Spotify seems to be interested in doing the same thing, with an announcement posted on the official forums revealing that the Windows Phone client has been placed in maintenance mode, meaning that no new features are being developed, but only critical security updates.
As explained in this reddit post, the announcement comes as a reply to a 2016 post, when the first rumors of a possible demise of the Spotify client for Windows phones reached the web.
“Spotify for Windows Phone has been placed into maintenance mode. Thus, we will only be making critical security updates to the current Spotify app and not releasing any new features nor improving support for old devices going forward. Users can continue to use Spotify on previously supported Windows Phones and Spotify will remain on the Windows Store,” Spotify says.
Developers jumping ship just makes sense
Seeing developers leaving for Android and iOS is actually no surprise, and it’s all happening because of the shrinking user base. Devs can no longer invest in apps for Windows phones because the number of users installing them is continuously decreasing and there’s absolutely no sign that this could change anytime soon.
Microsoft, which is supposed to be the pioneer of Windows phones apps and the one struggling to keep developers around, remains tight-lipped on its mobile vision, with some comments actually fueling the uncertainty affecting the app and leading to more developers waving goodbye.
Switching to Android or iOS is a decision that makes sense in most of the cases and nobody can blame developers for jumping ship, especially because the user base there could generate bigger revenue. For what it’s worth, Android currently has a share of more than 80 percent, while Windows Phone dropped to less than 1 percent already.