Shulou(Shulou.com)05/31 Report--

Earlier this year, Microsoft executives made plans to help bridge the gap between Windows and Windows Phone in mobile applications through four new toolkits.

But there are growing signs that one of them, the Android Bridge, codenamed "Astoria", may be delayed or more likely to be shelved altogether. (as of August, Microsoft had said that the astoria Bridge code would be released in a public beta this fall.) (.)

Windows Central reported late last week that there was growing evidence that Microsoft's Android bridge "won't happen anytime soon."

An official statement issued by a Microsoft spokesman did not deny that Android Bridge was dead, but did not confirm that it was still alive. Soft-hearted people will say, "not ready yet." The following is the full text of Microsoft's statement on astoria:

Microsoft has opened Westminster Bridge to developers, allowing developers to package their websites in the form of Windows 10 applications.

In August, Microsoft released the source code for its "isolated tree" bridge, which is for developers interested in porting its iOS applications to Windows 10 Github. Currently, the bridge can only port iOS applications to Intel-based devices, which means it doesn't support arm-based Windows phone.

Microsoft CEO and Microsoft watcher Mary Joe Foley discussed her thinking about product differentiation and took the lead on this issue.

Microsoft will help developers bring Win32 applications to the "century" bridge on Windows 10 devices until sometime in 2016.

From the beginning, the Astoria Robot Bridge was different. It is only suitable for bringing Android apps to Windows 10 phones (or small tablets running Windows 10 phones if there are apps from the original device manufacturer). Because Android Bridge needs an Android Open Source Project (AOSP) subsystem / simulation layer, Microsoft is building this subsystem / simulation layer for the Windows 10 mobile platform, rather than the Windows 10 operating system for pc and larger tablets, so it can only run on Windows 10 mobile devices.

In August, Microsoft officials said it would provide Android bridging technology through private previews to select testers for that purpose. Since then, there has been no news about the fate of the bridge.

I heard from one of my contacts that Microsoft removed the emulation layer of Windows 10 Mobile Edition around October because some people use this technology to run Android applications on Windows 10 Mobile Edition without the license of the individuals and companies who developed them.

Microsoft officials may have decided that astoria Bridge will make it easy for anyone and everyone to run existing and unmodified Android applications on Windows phones. Microsoft's original intention in developing Android and other bridging technologies is to allow developers to use Cortana, Live Tiles, Continuum and other Windows 10 technologies to customize their applications. This does not mean that users are allowed to bypass developers and run existing non-Windows applications on Windows 10.

When Microsoft announced its bridge project at the construction conference in April 2015, I was surprised that everyone here applauded the move, as most of the people present were probably established Microsoft developers who had been trying to compete with iOS and Android. Perhaps existing Microsoft developers think that few Android developers care about bringing their apps to Windows Phone, so this move will have no impact.

I don't think Google or Oracle has anything to do with Microsoft's behavior, as some have suggested. Whether it's internal politics or the technical issues behind the delay or cancellation of the Astoria bridge, Microsoft's plans to introduce Android apps to Windows Phone seem unresolved.

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