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Microsoft Adds Android to Windows Phone API Mapping ToolMicrosoft released API mapping tools for Android developers, as promised this week, to make it easier to port Android apps to Windows Phone 7.
In April, Microsoft released API mapping tools for Apple iOS developers and indicated that similar tooling was on the way for Android sometime this summer. The Apple iOS tools provide the same API lookup and mapping functionality, according to the company.
The mapping tools enable developers to look up Android API calls and find "the equivalent classes, methods and notification events in WP7," according to a Windows Team Blog post. Developers can also find sample C# code and API documentation relating to specific Android API calls.
"With the API Mapping tools, Microsoft is making it easier for smartphone developers to extend the reach of their applications to the Windows Phone platform," a Microsoft spokesperson wrote in an email.
Jean-Christophe Cimetiere, a senior technical evangelist for interoperability at Microsoft, wrote in the post announcing the Android Mapping tool that Microsoft will add support for Windows Phone 7 "Mango." That update is "planned for this summer," Cimetiere wrote.
Additional support for developers looking to port applications to Windows Phone 7 can be found at Microsoft’s Windows Phone Interoperability site, which provides whitepapers, case studies and developer insights. The site also aggregates forum discussions relevant to Windows Phone 7 development, drawn from sources such as Stackoverflow and the MSDN Windows Phone 7 community forums. Called "App Guy," the service pulls porting-related discussions from these forums and surfaces them on the Windows Phone Interoperability site.
"The goal here is to help developers learn [to] maximize their time spent building applications for Windows Phone," the Microsoft spokesperson wrote.
