Project Islandwood, the codename for the Windows Bridge for iOS, seems to have been a resounding success for Microsoft with over 4500 stars and over 500 forks on GitHub. Even more, the community seems to have really dug in, with Microsoft receiving a swarm of feedback. This feedback has brought over 200 issues to light and Microsoft is en route for fixing most of them.
Alongside the bug fixing and general optimisations that Microsoft has been focusing on since they released the project on GitHub, the company has also introduced a number of new features in the preceding months:
- GLKit.
- Xibs, AutoLayout & Storyboard.
- KVO/KVC.
- New sample projects.
- Increasing coverage of iOS libraries
That's not all, though. Microsoft is also promising many new goodies for the future. An automatic app analyser to check for compatibility between developers' code and the bridge is one such thing. Not only will it weed out any problems your code might have, but also indicate how much work you have left before the code is good to go, along with a number of useful tips and suggestions. Downloadable evaluation virtual machines (VMs) are also on the table to entice those developers who haven't yet taken the plunge.
All in all, the four Windows Bridges that Microsoft is working on are arguably the company's largest undertaking in relation to Windows Mobile and, if successful, could bring a veritable blossom of apps in Microsoft's otherwise deserted app stores. The Project Astoria bridge for Android apps may very well be dead in the water but Windows users can still rejoice, because it's full steam ahead on the iOS front.
Source: Microsoft
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