Microsoft tells developers they can run their UWP apps on the Surface Duo

For most pragmatists, the news that Microsoft decided to launch its Andromeda hardware with Android was welcome news, but for a large number of the faithful who had been waiting 5 years for the Surface Phone, the news was a major blow.

One such group was UWP developers, who saw the floor fall out of the market with the death of Windows Phone. Gianfranco Percopo, one such developer, complained to the @windowsdev account about UWP support on the Surface Duo and (in a now-deleted tweet) received the surprise answer that this would indeed be possible.

The news that Microsoft made a UWP runtime for Android would have been a major and welcome revelation, but @windowsdev, in the end, was simply pointing Percopo to the ability to use Xamarin in Visual Studio.

We have seen UWP developers take encouragement from Windows 10X, which features UWP apps prominently in Microsoft’s promotional videos, but that operating system of course also fully supports win32 apps, and Windows 10X devices are unlikely to be popular enough to really change the equation for developers in general and Windows developers in particular, much in the same way HoloLens and the Surface Hub has not led to a renaissance of UWP apps for Windows 10.

Do our readers think it is time to give up on UWP the same way Microsoft gave up on Windows Phone? Let us know below.

Via WalkingCat