Running another phone’s operating system on a different device has been purely wishful thinking for most. Running Windows Phone 8.1 on an iPhone or Android Device for example may sound cool in theory but with Microsoft releasing individual apps for its services like Cortana, One Drive and Office on iOS and Android and even a Windows 10 Phone Companion app in the pipeline, we’re already getting closer to the Microsoft-ification of Android and iOS.
A tweet by Microsoft’s Gabriel Aul from earlier today though, responding to a Tweeted question, may hint at larger plans than just apps running on other devices.
When asked by a user on the possibility of Android phones being given the ability to switch os to Windows, Gabriel Aul reminded the Tweeter that Xiaomi has enabled this in beta for the Mi4 device. He linked to an official Microsoft blog post mentioning Xiaomi, and WinBeta wrote about the Xiaomi “experiment” at the time it was announced.
@RSARJUN We’re working on this with Xiaomi for the Mi4 device, but no news on other devices at this time. http://t.co/e3nzm2ixIF
— Gabriel Aul (@GabeAul) June 23, 2015
Now we’re going pretty far out on a limb here, but it’s the “no news on other devices at this time” part that intrigues us. Any operating system by nature needs to be tweaked to work with individual devices, but if Windows 10 Mobile can be made to work on one Android device, why couldn’t it work on more?
If nothing else, the thought of Windows 10 Mobile running on Android devices would create quite a buzz, and it sure is fun to speculate. What do you think the impact of Microsoft powered devices that were originally made for Android would be?