The vast majority of smartphones on the market today run on Android or iOS, but it wasn’t long ago that Microsoft was in the game with Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile.
Windows 10 Mobile was Microsoft’s last attempt to break into a smartphone operating system. It offered a distinctive Live Tile interface, a desktop mode for external viewing, and support for universal Windows apps.
Unfortunately, the Achilles’ heel for Microsoft’s latest mobile operating system continued to lack apps compared to Android and iOS. This would be a major factor in the platform’s demise. Did you know, however, that Microsoft is at an advanced stage in providing Android app support for Windows 10 Mobile?
Astoria project
Microsoft initially developed several software bridges for Windows 10 Mobile to help developers easily port their apps from older Windows, iOS, and Android versions. The first two bridges, called Project Islandwood and Project Centennial and designed for porting iOS and Windows, actually saw the light of day.
The third bridge, called Project Astoria, was unfortunately pulled by Windows 10 Mobile prior to its commercial release. However, the Android subsystem was available in preview builds of the then-new operating system so users had an idea of what to expect.
It’s one thing to make porting apps from one platform to another easier, but Project Astoria and its subsystem were a little more advanced. The project enabled end users to install Android apps on their phones as well. To do this, you had to enable developer mode on your phone that is running Windows 10 Mobile Preview, install the internal APK2W10M app on your PC, connect your phone to the PC, and then deploy the app you want.
The Windows 10 Mobile preview allowed you to run Android apps without changing the APK files.
Granted, this wasn’t exactly easy for the average consumer, but the fact that APK files worked without changes made it clear how far these tools were in development and how little effort would have been required to get Android apps to the stable version to bring the platform.
At the time of the Windows 10 Mobile preview program in 2015, I was able to install several apps like Steam and Reddit Sync on my Lumia 1020. However, there have definitely been a ton of apps that didn’t run properly due to glitches, crashes, or simply a lack of Google Play Services. Even so, for a brief moment it felt like the app gap was shrinking almost significantly.
Microsoft is pulling the plug
Unfortunately for hobbyists and Windows Phone users hoping for more apps, the Redmond giant made the decision to remove Project Astoria from the final Windows 10 Mobile version in late 2015. Microsoft’s reasoning felt a bit strange even then.
“We have received a lot of feedback that two bridge technologies are not required to transfer code from mobile operating systems to Windows and the choice between them can be confusing,” said the company in an update of Astoria’s cancellation. Would developers really be confused about whether to port the Android version of their app or the iOS version?
Another belief is that Microsoft Project killed Astoria because it posed a threat to its Universal Windows Apps initiative and apps that take full advantage of Windows Phone features (e.g. Live Tiles, Metro UI). After all, the early Windows 10 Mobile builds that included the Android subsystem were able to run many APK files without any changes being made to them.
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Ars Technica suggested that Microsoft may have tried to avoid legal issues by dropping Project Astoria. In particular, the point of sale noted that Microsoft intended to create its own “workalikes” for Google APIs that are not included in AOSP. It is assumed that this would have been legally checked based on the Oracle / Google test version via Android itself.
Even if Project Astoria ended up in the final version of Windows 10 Mobile, there is no guarantee that Android apps alone would have kept the platform alive. The BlackBerry 10 platform offered support for Android apps when launched in 2013. Unfortunately, despite improvements like a runtime based on a newer version of Android and dropping the requirement that APK files must be converted to BAR files first, BlackBerry still ended its platform in later years in favor of the correct Android.
The legacy of Project Astoria officially lives on, however, when a Microsoft engineer confirmed that the Linux subsystem for Windows 10, which allows you to run Linux command-line tools and programs on your PC, came from working on the Android Windows Bridge was derived.
Unofficial solutions have also surfaced to enable Project Astoria to be re-enabled on Windows phones. However, that includes a lot of tinkering and resetting to previews by Windows 10 Mobile developers. Either way, it’s another stark reminder of what could have been for Microsoft’s unfortunate mobile platform.
This is tenth post in our Did You Know That series, where we dive into the history books of Android and consumer technology to uncover key and interesting facts or events that have been forgotten over time. What would you like to see from us next? Let us know in the comments.
