Not again! You know what would be really great is if all these big name developers that are discontinuing their Windows Phone apps get back with their Windows 10 solutions.
Universal, streamlined, feature rich applications for Microsoft’s upcoming new operating system.
That may yet happen.
But for the time being we have news that another developer has parted ways with Microsoft’s mobile platform. NBC has decided to remove its Today app from the Windows Phone Store — joining the likes of the Bank of America and Chase in ignoring the mobile OS.
A look around reveals that the last update for this application was released on April 30, 2014.
Meaning it has basically been without any refinements and improvements for the better part of a year now. Worse yet, even though the app was available in the store, NBC had not even updated the news that was displayed to users via it, with some people commenting that stories were 6 to 8 months old.
Shows that NBC did not have much interest in providing Windows Phone users with easy access to its news service via this app.
That said, the company has not provided any reason for the app removal.
Official reason, that is to say.
All said and done, it goes to show that developer interest in the Windows Phone platform is rapidly dropping. Let’s just hope Windows 10 for Phones arrives soon to save the day.
All Comments
Microsoft only has itself to blame. Why are you taking so long to release a new or not releasing a phone with more top of the line specs than any phone out there? Why are you not paying developers to develop and update apps for the platform. I’m sure most of the them aren’t making near as much total as you set aside for hardware OEMS to make devices. Why do you abandon your own platforms when you have a new one on the horizon? I haven’t seen a big marketing push for Windows and Windows Phone 8.x devices in over a year. How can it be to have a top of the line device and 100 developers lined up with apps for the release of Windows 10. How much money are they really making having these apps on other platforms or losing having them on WP. I’m not saying NBC is one of the important ones, but the ones that are, Microsoft needs to take care of that.
Well said, Ray. Most of what is happening is down to the Windows Phone division in how they have approached things. Things held out for a while, but the exodus of developers from the platform this year is nothing, if not alarming.