Microsoft delivers a new tool to help iOS developers migrate iPhone applications to the Windows Phone 7 platform.
Hoping to tap into the
momentum of developers building applications for the Apple iPhone, Microsoft
has launched a new tool to help migrate iPhone applications to Windows Phone 7.
Microsoft, on April 29,
launched Microsoft its iPhone/iOS to Windows Phone 7 API mapping tool, which is
like a translation dictionary, said Jean-Christophe Cimetiere, a Microsoft
senior evangelist for interoperability, on
The
Windows Blog.
"For example, let's say that
you're planning a vacation to France," Cimetiere said. "Since you don't speak
the language, you'll bring a pocket travel dictionary. Having this tool will
surely help you to get some idea about what you are ordering from a restaurant
menu, but you'll have no idea what the actual recipe is, nor will you be able
to have a conversion in French with the server. But that's a great learning
tool to make the first steps."
Moreover, with this tool,
iPhone developers can grab their applications, pick out the iOS API calls, and
quickly look up the equivalent classes, methods and notification events in
Windows Phone 7, Cimetiere said. A developer can search a given iOS API call
and find the equivalent WP7 along with C# sample codes and API documentations
for both platforms, he said. Developers can take the tool for a
test drive here.
"The code samples allow
developers to quickly migrate short blobs of iOS code to the equivalent C#
code," Cimetiere said. "All WP7 API documentations are pulled in from the
Silverlight, C# and XNA sources on MSDN [Microsoft Developer Network]."
Cimetiere said the iOS APIs
can broadly be classified into a series of basic categories: Audio/Video, Data
Management, Graphics/Animation, Network/Internet, Performance, Security and
User Interface.
"For current mapping, we
started with three popular categories [Network/Internet, User Interface and
Data Management] and mapped them to the Windows Phone 7 API," he said. "Don't
expect a mapping for all of the APIs, simply because the platforms are built
upon different architectures and user interfaces. For this first round, we
focused on identifying the one-to-one mapping when it exists. In the following
versions, we'll expand the scope and anytime the concepts are similar enough,
we'll do our best to provide the appropriate guidance."
Microsoft will continue to
evolve the tool to map additional iOS APIs, Cimetiere said. The company also
will provide similar guidance and tools for Android developers, he said.
Meanwhile, based on a recent
survey,
Appcelerator and IDC
announced that that developer momentum is shifting back toward Apple as
fragmentation and tepid interest in current Android tablets chip away at
Google's recent momentum gains.
The
Appcelerator-IDC
Q2 2011 Mobile Developer Report, taken April 11-13, shows that interest in
Android has recently reached a plateau as concerns around fragmentation and
disappointing results from early tablet sales have caused developers to pull
back from their previous enthusiasm for Google's mobile operating system. While
this opens the door a crack for new entrants, nearly two-thirds of respondents
believe that it is not possible for Microsoft, RIM, HP and Nokia to reverse
momentum relative to Apple and Google, Appcelerator said.
Moreover, Appcelerator said
underscoring the fluidity of the mobile ecosystem and in a peculiar turn of
events, recent simultaneous drops in developer interest in Windows Phone 7 and
BlackBerry OSes move Windows Phone 7 ahead of BlackBerry to claim the third
spot in developer interest. Also featured in the Appcelerator-IDC report
is an analysis of the six layers of fragmentation, including Android, that are
increasingly frustrating developers, a fresh take on mobile applications vs.
mobile Web, and a look at how the ubiquity of the "mobile cloud" is addressing
fragmentation and defining the powerful new trend of always-on computing,
Appcelerator officials said.
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