Windows phones fans, the few of them that exist, are going to have to wait a bit longer for their new phones. The Windows 10 operating system is expected to appear on PCs this summer but won't make it to other devices until an unspecified later date.
Windows 10 has been making waves at Microsoft's Build developer conference in San Francisco this week, with its universal apps and its ability to run Android apps among a myriad of new features. But it seems Microsoft users will have to be happy running Android apps on their PCs, at least until after the summer.
"Our phone builds have not been as far along as our PC builds," Microsoft's Joe Belfiore said at the Build conference. "We're adapting the phone experiences later than we're adding the PC experiences."
It appears that even in the mobile first world we're living in, Microsoft's main focus is still on the PC. "From the device view, our main focus is to kick off the Windows 10 launch wave with a great launch on the PC," added Belfiore. "You should expect that the other devices - phone, HoloLens, Xbox, Surface Hub - will be staggered, probably not on the same date as the PC." It's really to be expected, however, as Microsoft did the same thing when it launched Windows 8 and it took a few months before the new OS was available on phones.
The Microsoft executive also admitted that Windows 10 will be missing some features when it is first launched. For example, there will be no Win32 desktop apps in the Windows Store at first. Microsoft's new Edge browser extension support also won't arrive until the fall.
"We're on track for this summer, but you should definitely have this notion in mind of Windows as a service," says Belfiore. What he means is that Windows 10 will launch in the summer, though he's not giving clues as to whether that means June or August, and by "service" he means that there will be regular updates and patches that will add new features as they are developed.
