• Windows Phone Area
• On August 8, 2017

Windows 10 Mobile will be displaced by Andromeda OS

Back in February, we exclusively reported about Microsoft’s plan to replace Windows 10 Mobile with a modular OS codenamed Andromeda. The company is already working on the new OS with Composable Shell for all Windows devices, while remaining tight-lipped about its future plans for Mobile. Microsoft separated the current Windows 10 Mobile OS from Andromeda, which was a clear sign that none of the existing devices will be upgraded to the upcoming modular version of Windows 10.

While we don’t know much about Andromeda OS and the flagship mobile device running the new OS just yet, a new report by Windows Central shed some more light on the “legacy ARM chipsets” powering phones like the Lumia 950, Alcatel IDOL 4 Pro and Elite x3. According to the report, Microsoft is planning to support Windows 10 Mobile until the end of 2018, porting new UWP APIs and rolling out security updates and patches.

Microsoft will not actually introduce the new APIs in Redstone 3 & 4 for smartphones, but instead backport them in order for UWP apps to work on the old phones that will technically remain with Redstone 2 (Creators Update).

So, expect the current phones to be supported by the end of 2018. Around early 2019 the apps using new APIs introduced in Redstone 5 may stop working on Windows 10 Mobile, so the existing phones may become completely irrelevant.

But before ending support for Windows 10 Mobile, Microsoft should unveil the so-called Andromeda device running Windows 10 with CSHell (Andromeda OS). Microsoft’s ambitions to unify all versions of Windows 10 may be close to completion, but that means we will see another Mobile reboot – this time the final.

More evidence of Microsoft’s mobile device ‘Andromeda’