As promised back in April, Microsoft has today released an Android to Windows Phone API mapping tool for developers which will help developers port existing Android applications to the Windows Phone platform. Like its iPhone counterpart, the tool doesn’t actually port your code for you automatically. Instead, what it provides is a list of API mappings that acts like a translation dictionary from one platform to the next.
The new tool, available here for free, is a part of a new package aimed at Android developers looking to extend their apps to other platforms. Also included is a “Windows Phone 7 Guide for Android Application Developers” white paper which contains 90+ pages of information to help you learn Windows Phone.
As before, Microsoft reminds developers that not all API’s can be mapped because the platforms have different architectures and user interfaces. But to aid developers in the transition, it has hired an “App Guy” who will crawl developer forums, aggregating discussions from different locations to answer questions related to porting from iOS or Android to Windows Phone. App Guy has no name, so we’re not sure if this a real person, a team of people or a bot, but, for what it’s worth, Microsoft refers to him as “just one guy,” implying that there will be more “app guys” in the future, perhaps.
The next step Microsoft has planned for help with porting is to update both the iPhone and Android API mapping tools to include the Mango features. This is planned for this summer, the company says.
