Microsoft might put Android apps on Windows Phone

[anuseems]

Microsoft might be about to annihilate its apps problem, as it's now rumoured that the company is considering allowing Android apps to run on its Windows Phone handsets

From Techradar:

Microsoft has so far failed to become a big mobile player, with users flocking instead to iOS and Android. There are any number of reasons for that but one of the biggest is surely the more developed app stores that Microsoft's two biggest competitors have.Not only do Apple and Google's stores have more apps but they even have some high profile apps which Windows Phone lacks. So allowing Android apps to run alongside native ones could be the solution and that's exactly what the company is discussing, according to a former Microsoft employee as reported by The Information.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/microsoft-might-bring-android-apps-to-windows-phone-1281244

[ffi]

I don't think they'll be able to, not really, other players have tried and tried but more and more android apps rely on google's proprietary play service api's

[CODYQX4]

I don't think they'll be able to, not really, other players have tried and tried but more and more android apps rely on google's proprietary play service api's

That's because Android is nothing more than the illusion of freedom, but really it just feels that way because Google's death choke on what apps run on it without rooting is a little more soft than Apple's.

Open Source, except for this library that is closed source, you can't include in Open Source, that runs with god like system rights over your system, and we're going to let all the open APIs decay as 3nd class citizens so all Play apps run on it.

I find that worse than Apple just straight up admitting they want control over their OS, at least they're upfront about it and you know it when you buy in.

[ffi]

I don't think they'll be able to, not really, other players have tried and tried but more and more android apps rely on google's proprietary play service api's

That's because Android is nothing more than the illusion of freedom, but really it just feels that way because Google's death choke on what apps run on it without rooting is a little more soft than Apple's.

Open Source, except for this library that is closed source, you can't include in Open Source, that runs with god like system rights over your system, and we're going to let all the open APIs decay as 3nd class citizens so all Play apps run on it.

I find that worse than Apple just straight up admitting they want control over their OS, at least they're upfront about it and you know it when you buy in.

You can easily add apps without needing root from other sources, it's just that the google apis are really good, devs don't need to use them but the prefer to because it saves them a lot of work

[CODYQX4]

I don't think they'll be able to, not really, other players have tried and tried but more and more android apps rely on google's proprietary play service api's

That's because Android is nothing more than the illusion of freedom, but really it just feels that way because Google's death choke on what apps run on it without rooting is a little more soft than Apple's.

Open Source, except for this library that is closed source, you can't include in Open Source, that runs with god like system rights over your system, and we're going to let all the open APIs decay as 3nd class citizens so all Play apps run on it.

I find that worse than Apple just straight up admitting they want control over their OS, at least they're upfront about it and you know it when you buy in.

You can easily add apps without needing root from other sources, it's just that the google apis are really good, devs don't need to use them but the prefer to because it saves them a lot of work

The Google APIs are good, but there used to be perfectly good APIs, that were left to rot, so that Google could only work on their own APIs from there on.

That in effect, locks you to their Google Services Framework, which is like a mini-OS in itself. There wasn't really much reason for them to do that, short of both having more control, and preventing people from modifying those APIs freely for better or worse.

I do know about the sideloading thing, that's what I mean is Google is less restricting, but if you want full control you still need to root/jailbreak. I wouldn't choose to use an unjailbroken iPhone, and I wouldn't choose to not root an Android one.