Microsoft has already confirmed that Windows phones no longer have a future, and the company hasn’t planned any new features for the existing devices. The developers and companies are removing their apps from the Windows Store ever since Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore publicly confirmed that Windows Phone platform has been discontinued.
Yesterday, Twitter PWA started to roll out to Windows 10 Mobile users. Twitter PWA on Windows 10 Mobile seems to be a downgrade as it lacks Live Tile and push notification support, however, the performance is somewhat smoother.
Twitter today announced in a blog post that the company is ending support for their UWP app. The company says that the UWP version of Twitter has been removed from the Microsoft Store (formerly Windows Store), and starting June 1, the app will be no longer supported. In the coming months (probably after API change), Twitter could stop working on devices such as Windows Phones and PCs with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update or older.
“We encourage everyone to update the Windows app as soon as you update your OS as previous versions will no longer be available for download starting today and no longer supported starting June 1st,” the company said.
Twitter is still committed to Microsoft’s Windows platform and the PWA app has been optimized for Windows 10 April 2018 Update. Twitter PWA for Windows 10 comes with several new changes including access to the explore tab to find topics relevant to your interests, and it features a new look. The PWA version is basically a web-wrapper with support for some extra features such as live tiles, jump links and other APIs.
It is also worth noting that Twitter PWA requires the Windows 10 April 2018 Update and you can upgrade your computer to the latest version of the operating system by manually checking for updates. If you’re using a Windows Phone, your best bet would be Twitter’s mobile site.
Twitter is basically trading the UWP app for PWA which requires the newest version of Windows 10 called ‘April 2018 Update’. Microsoft is bringing support for Progressive Web App to Windows 10 with the April update. Needless to say, the Progressive Web App is a good concept and it could help Microsoft fix the app gap. While some believe that at some point they could replace UWP, that’s really not the case.