Microsoft Packs Popular Websites Into Apps To Fill The Windows Phone Store




/ 11 years ago

windows_phone

Popular apps such as Pandora and Tumblr have been cooked up into apps and headed over to Windows Phone in recent months, and in the coming days, Instagram and Flipboard will be the latest mega-popular smartphone apps added to that list. But despite the numerous big name, Microsoft is still trailing Android and iOS when it comes to apps.

Microsoft is turning to creating “web apps” for a number of popular brands and websites. A new section on the Windows Phone Store called Microsoft WebApps, first spotted by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, offers a number of downloadable, pinnable web apps that are basically app wrappers for popular websites, and nothing more. The hope is that WebApps for Windows Phone will encourage companies to develop full-blown native apps for Windows Phone.

Microsoft is currently offering more than 40 Web apps including Blockbuster, CarMax, Food Network, Glassdoor, Jimmy John’s, Listverse, TMZ, and Orbitz. As the previous list suggests, Microsoft’s WebApps are mostly mainstream retail outlets and some popular websites.

“These are not a replacement for native apps,” a Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNet. “In most cases we hope that usage of the Web App will encourage the [website owner] to publish its own native app.”

While web apps aren’t a replacement for apps written in native code, they are a good stopgap to fill out any holes in the Windows Phone app catalog—but this approach can only take you so far. If a service doesn’t have a well-supported mobile website that offers a similar experience to a native app, then there’s little point to creating a pinnable web tile.

However, a combined effort to “convert” developers over to Windows Phone with direct appeals and Web app development could help Microsoft in its quest for app parity with Android and iOS.

Thank you PCWorld for providing us with this information.


Topics: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Support eTeknix.com

By supporting eTeknix, you help us grow and continue to bring you the latest newsreviews, and competitions. Follow us on FacebookTwitter and Instagram to keep up with the latest technology news, reviews and more. Share your favourite articles, chat with the team and more. Also check out eTeknix YouTube, where you'll find our latest video reviews, event coverage and features in 4K!

Looking for more exciting features on the latest technology? Check out our What We Know So Far section or our Fun Reads for some interesting original features.

eTeknix Facebook eTeknix Twitter eTeknix Instagram eTeknix Instagram
  • Be Social With eTeknix

    Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Reddit RSS Discord Patreon TikTok Twitch
  • Features


Send this to a friend
})