Winobjc – the Windows Bridge for Ios

Posted2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago

zerr

65 points

16 comments

github.comTechstory

skepticalmixed

Debate

40/100

WinobjcIosWindows BridgeMicrosoftObjective-C

Key topics

Winobjc

Ios

Windows Bridge

Microsoft

Objective-C

The Windows Bridge for iOS (WinObjC) is an open-source project by Microsoft that allows iOS apps to run on Windows, but its current status and maintenance are being questioned by the community.

Snapshot generated from the HN discussion

Discussion Activity

Moderate engagement

First comment

Peak period

120-132h

Avg / period

3.2

Comment distribution16 data points

Loading chart...

Based on 16 loaded comments

Key moments

01Story posted
Nov 2, 2025 at 11:47 AM EST
2 months ago
Step 01
02First comment
Nov 2, 2025 at 4:58 PM EST
5h after posting
Step 02
03Peak activity
6 comments in 120-132h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03
04Latest activity
Nov 9, 2025 at 9:21 AM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 04

Generating AI Summary...

Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns

Discussion (16 comments)

Showing 16 comments

sillywalk

2 months ago

3 replies

Interesting, I never knew about this. I do remember that NeXT ported OPENSTEP to Windows NT as OPENSTEP Enterprise.

extraduder_ire

about 2 months ago

3 replies

I think a separate objective-c runtime was ported to windows by apple for itunes and later safari to work.

svth

about 2 months ago

2 replies

If I recall correctly, iTunes was a Carbon application. They ported parts of the Carbon APIs to get it running on Windows.

agsnu

about 2 months ago

2 replies

QuickTime for Windows existed long before then, and Apple ported a bunch of the old Classic Mac Toolbox to Windows as part of that.

IIRC it was actually this Windows port of Toolbox that in some ways laid the foundation for Carbon - i.e. a port of the Toolbox API to what became Mac OS X.

stuaxo

about 2 months ago

Interesting stuff, I wish there was a way it would get open sourced one day.

lukeh

about 2 months ago

Yes, this is correct.

tonyedgecombe

about 2 months ago

I do remember it had its own font rendering which looked out of place on Windows.

fithisux

about 2 months ago

There is also GNUStep.

stuaxo

about 2 months ago

There seem to be bunch of DLLs in iTunes and Safari with familiar names.

Would have been good if someone made bindings for them, it would have been interesting to see what MacOS like stuff could work there, even if it just python bindings.

malkia

about 2 months ago

I still have WebObjects 4.5.2, but could not get hands on the YellowBox

dottrap

about 2 months ago

Microsoft's timing was the worst. I think they announced this a year after Swift was already announced, but before Swift was open sourced. So Microsoft wouldn't be able to deal with things like Obj-C/Swift interop which iOS developers were already jumping onto. And Microsoft's Windows 8 mobile initiative was pretty clearly a flop by this point.

Frankly, this Obj-C effort needed to be done way earlier, starting with AppKit, like back when Microsoft was panicking that OS X 10.4 Tiger was going to kick Longhorn's butt. If these tools had already been proven useful before the dawn of the iPhone, Microsoft might have had a chance of riding the iOS wave.

JSR_FDED

about 2 months ago

2 replies

I miss Objective-C, it’s just so darn readable (once you know what @ and [] do)

fithisux

about 2 months ago

Yes Objective-C is THE C with objects.

I do not understand why Microsoft stopped this effort.

Paired with Win32 is easier than C++.

millerm

about 2 months ago

I wholeheartedly agree. I had a great time in Objective-C.

1970-01-01

about 2 months ago

Oh, they've got a well-structured roadmap with milestones. Surely, this is will be a long-lasting bridge. And last commit was 3 years ago. And "This repository was archived by the owner on May 28, 2025. It is now read-only."

It's dead but still around. This is the stuff ripe for Jia Tan v4.0 to revive and backdoor.

dardeaup

about 2 months ago

Missing reference to 2015/2016.

View full discussion on Hacker News

ID: 45791596Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 12:26:32 PM

Want the full context?

Jump to the original sources

Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.

Open link View on HN