Facebook is killing off its Windows Phone apps on April 30

[midian182]

What just happened? The long, drawn-out death of the Windows Phone keeps moving toward its inevitable conclusion. Facebook’s family of apps, which includes Messenger, Instagram, and the social network’s main application, will no longer be supported on the devices from April 30.

This October will mark nine years since Windows Mobile's initial release. It never came close to challenging Android and iOS, and in 2016 Microsoft said that the platform, which at the time had around 2 percent of the market share, was no longer going to be a focus for the company, spelling the beginning of the end.

After again confirming it was moving away from Windows Phones in 2017, software and security updates ceased in December last year.

Many apps have been dropping support for Windows Mobile over the years, and now the Facebook family is abandoning ship. Windows Phone users on Reddit noted that Instagram sent out a push notification warning that the end of support date would be April 30.

Facebook has confirmed that its app and Messenger, which are some of the platform’s most popular applications, would also be removed from the Microsoft Store on the same date. Windows Phone users will still be able to access Facebook and Instagram via their device's web browser.

As of last month, Windows has less than 0.3 percent of the worldwide mobile operating system market. It remains to be seen whether those holdouts decide to move on as a result of Facebook’s decision.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/79505-facebook-killing-off-windows-phone-apps-april-30.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Ultimately, this is the reason that it's so difficult to have a 3rd choice aside from iOS and Android. Poor development, poor support and mismanagement always do them in.

If I was Microsoft, we'd have been so aggressive with Xbox integration, cloud gaming and mobile that we may have brought apple to its knees.

But they basically gave up way back with the Zune. It was garbage. iPod Touch came out - and rather than copy that, MS just gave up.

Had I been there, we'd have Xbox portables by now that rivaled the PSP and Vita.

 

[SirDigby]

Most of the holdouts are corporate phones, I work for BT and we only stopped distributing Windows 640 XLs last summer, finally launched BYOD and corporate Android phones but can't replace the Windows unless its broken.... I just took the SIM out and put it in my OnePlus 6T and did BYOD.

 

[netman]

"After again confirming it was moving away from Windows Phones in 2017, software and security updates ceased in December last year."

Just noting, the security updates end December of this year (2019) not last year...

 

[Kytetiger]

So, it's the Windows Phone app on the store, not the Windows UWP app on the store?
I'm at work, so I can't check.