Microsoft suspends development of touch-friendly Office apps for Windows

Enlarge (credit: Nicole Klauss)

Microsoft has stopped developing new features for the touch-friendly Office Mobile apps for Windows 10, reports the Verge.

Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile first made their debut with Windows 8.1. Their significance is twofold: they have a user interface that's designed to be touch-friendly, and they're built using Microsoft's modern UWP (Universal Windows Platform) framework. They've been regularly updated since their introduction, but no longer. The use of UWP meant that the same app core could be used on both desktop Windows and Windows 10 Mobile, but with Windows 10 Mobile no longer a going concern, this compatibility is no longer a priority.

In a statement to the Verge, Microsoft said, "We are currently prioritizing development for the iOS and Android versions of our apps; and on Windows, we are prioritizing Win32 and Web versions of our apps."

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments