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Is the Windows Bridge for iOS Projects Dead?

16 points by WoodenChair 4y ago

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Though I cannot give an official statement, Microsoft has a long history of abandoning open-source projects once the employees working on them get bored, switch jobs, or move to other roles. It also doesn't help that the iOS Bridge wasn't used that much, didn't bolster UWP adoption (we all know how that went - developers were completely apathetic at best), and never supported Swift IIRC, only Objective-C applications. With more applications using Swift in part or even fully, and UWP being dead, and Windows 11 supporting Android apps on the Amazon App Store, the bridge is dead without major investments which Microsoft appears to have no interest in pursuing.
- trinovantes 4y ago
  It's funny when you look at the contribution graph and see that most of the activity happened in the typical tenure length at tech companies (1-2 years) https://github.com/microsoft/WinObjC/graphs/contributors https://github.com/microsoft/WinObjC/graphs/contributors
  - behnamoh 4y ago
    Interesting insight! Thought I wonder how these open-source projects get maintained at tech companies? Is it up to the developers to decide if they want to contribute, or does the management set plans for these things? In the former case, your conclusion seems true.
- eek2121 4y ago
  I mean, if you actually knew what was going on at Microsoft, you'd understand. I don't work for them, don't use their tech stack (not since the 2000s at least), however even I know they've moved to a cross platform UI/UX (.NET MAUI) framework. See the top comment on this post. EDIT: This move was actually made due to direct feedback from .NET being open sourced. 1 API, 1 way of building things, multiple platforms.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rvz 4y ago
Yes. It is dead.
pipeline_peak 4y ago
Do projects like these ever survive? Right now the “hot” thing in the world of reverse engineering large scale proprietary corporate platforms is RayvnOS.
- behnamoh 4y ago
  I mean, I know RavynOS was featured on HN recently (I posted it lol), but I think Asahi Linux has garnered more support and attention recently.
  - pipeline_peak 4y ago
    That’s at least realistic. It just seems like modern yellow dog, except in a world where Macs are already equipped with a functional *nix.
- fomine3 4y ago
  Valve's Proton and Wine based emulated gaming works very well than people expected.
withinrafael 4y ago
Microsoft is not investing in the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) anymore and is slowly migrating developers off the platform [1]. Given this project was designed for the aforementioned UWP and that Microsoft's cross-platform story now revolves .NET multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI [2])--which targets macOS and iOS--I think we can reasonably conclude this bridge project is dead. I reached out to Dustin on Twitter to get an official answer and/or get the repository archived appropriately. [3] [1] https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/apps/windows-app-sdk/migrate-to-windows-app-sdk/migrate-to-windows-app-sdk-ovw https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/apps/windows-app-sdk/migr... [2] https://docs.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui https://docs.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui [3] https://twitter.com/WithinRafael/status/1560087065575821312 https://twitter.com/WithinRafael/status/1560087065575821312
- pipeline_peak 4y ago
  The future of apps is browser-based. Not sure why this was downvoted.

16 points by WoodenChair 4y ago

Though I cannot give an official statement, Microsoft has a long history of abandoning open-source projects once the employees working on them get bored, switch jobs, or move to other roles. It also doesn't help that the iOS Bridge wasn't used that much, didn't bolster UWP adoption (we all know how that went - developers were completely apathetic at best), and never supported Swift IIRC, only Objective-C applications. With more applications using Swift in part or even fully, and UWP being dead, and Windows 11 supporting Android apps on the Amazon App Store, the bridge is dead without major investments which Microsoft appears to have no interest in pursuing.

trinovantes 4y ago
It's funny when you look at the contribution graph and see that most of the activity happened in the typical tenure length at tech companies (1-2 years) https://github.com/microsoft/WinObjC/graphs/contributors https://github.com/microsoft/WinObjC/graphs/contributors
- behnamoh 4y ago
  Interesting insight! Thought I wonder how these open-source projects get maintained at tech companies? Is it up to the developers to decide if they want to contribute, or does the management set plans for these things? In the former case, your conclusion seems true.
eek2121 4y ago
I mean, if you actually knew what was going on at Microsoft, you'd understand. I don't work for them, don't use their tech stack (not since the 2000s at least), however even I know they've moved to a cross platform UI/UX (.NET MAUI) framework. See the top comment on this post. EDIT: This move was actually made due to direct feedback from .NET being open sourced. 1 API, 1 way of building things, multiple platforms.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rvz 4y ago

Yes. It is dead.

pipeline_peak 4y ago

Do projects like these ever survive? Right now the “hot” thing in the world of reverse engineering large scale proprietary corporate platforms is RayvnOS.

behnamoh 4y ago
I mean, I know RavynOS was featured on HN recently (I posted it lol), but I think Asahi Linux has garnered more support and attention recently.
- pipeline_peak 4y ago
  That’s at least realistic. It just seems like modern yellow dog, except in a world where Macs are already equipped with a functional *nix.
fomine3 4y ago
Valve's Proton and Wine based emulated gaming works very well than people expected.

withinrafael 4y ago

Microsoft is not investing in the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) anymore and is slowly migrating developers off the platform [1]. Given this project was designed for the aforementioned UWP and that Microsoft's cross-platform story now revolves .NET multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI [2])--which targets macOS and iOS--I think we can reasonably conclude this bridge project is dead. I reached out to Dustin on Twitter to get an official answer and/or get the repository archived appropriately. [3] [1] https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/apps/windows-app-sdk/migrate-to-windows-app-sdk/migrate-to-windows-app-sdk-ovw https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/apps/windows-app-sdk/migr... [2] https://docs.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui https://docs.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui [3] https://twitter.com/WithinRafael/status/1560087065575821312 https://twitter.com/WithinRafael/status/1560087065575821312

pipeline_peak 4y ago
The future of apps is browser-based. Not sure why this was downvoted.