Windows open-sources iOS to Windows porting technology

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Windows has open-sourced WinObjC, a Windows-to-iOS bridge technology that can port iOS applications to Windows. It is currently still in the technology preview stage.

“Windows Bridge for iOS (WinObjC) provides an Objective-C development environment for Visual Studio/Windows. In addition, WinObjC provides support for iOS API compatibility.”

Last week, Microsoft released Windows 10, which is available in more than 190 markets. Now, 1 billion devices have been upgraded to Windows 10 and Universal Windows Platform (UWP). In addition to Windows, Microsoft also provides Windows SDK and surrounding tools that allow users to build and submit Universal Windows applications. Windows 10 introduces new APIs to build a platform to make applications more personalized: adaptive user experience, natural user input and cloud-based services. Microsoft also introduced a series of "bridge" technologies that allow developers to port their existing iOS, Android, Web and desktop code and technology sets to Windows.

Today, Microsoft officially open-sourced Windows Bridge for iOS (formerly known as 'Project Islandwood'). It is still in the preview stage, and the final version will be released this fall, along with Visual Studio 2015 Update. WinObjC follows the MIT open source agreement. For more information about the compiler, runtime, and IDE integration, please see the in-depth post on the Windows Bridge for iOS. The iOS bridge technology currently supports Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 applications, x86 and x64 processor architectures, and has optimized the compiler for ARM support and supports mobile terminals.

Other bridging technology updates:

'Project Westminster' is available on Windows 10 and Visual Studio 2015.

Windows Bridge for Android, 'Project Astoria' is also currently in the technical preview stage. While developing the Android bridge technology, we will also contribute to its community and submit some improvements to optimize ANGLE. ANGLE provides OpenGL to DirectX conversion, and these improvements have been accepted by Google, improving ANGLE's performance and DX feature level 9.3 compatibility.

Windows Bridge for Classic Windows apps, 'Project Centennial' is ready to be released to current .NET and Win32-based Windows apps, and will be available for public testing next year.

WinObjC GitHub address: https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC