THE BURNING PLATFORM IS COMING BACK. YOU WON'T BELIEVE HOW MICROSOFT WILL DO IT.

Recent news of Microsoft dropping support for the emulation of Android apps on Windows 10 mobile have led billions of Windows phone users to disappointment. Because of the heavy backlash, Microsoft was forced to seek other options available to satisfy their customers. Not much has been said on what these other options could be, until now.

Last week, while eating a hamburger at McDonald’s, I pulled out my Windows phone and was once again disappointed when I saw that Snapchat was still not on my list of apps. A McDonald’s employee happened to be walking nearby, noticing my look of disappointment, and immediately knew what was going through my mind. You won’t believe what he told me next!

After a brief introduction, the employee told me that he was not an employee of Microsoft, but that he was working with Microsoft's Windows 10 mobile development team and therefore knew a few secrets about what's been going on. He confirmed that Microsoft is indeed dropping Project Astoria, but more importantly, also said that Microsoft is planning on dropping support for iOS apps running on Windows phones (Project Morningwood) too. Even more shocking is that the team has been trying to convince the Microsoft CEO, Satya Nutella, to completely drop the idea of having a Universal Windows Platform. Why? You’ll be shocked to find out!

Microsoft is a fair company that does not believe in leaving users behind. This can be seen with their mobile platform, where phones as old as the Nokia 3310 can run the Windows 10 insider preview and encounter absolutely no lag because of the high level of optimization in Windows mobile. To continue this tradition, it has been decided that rather than moving toward new platforms, we should embrace the existing and pre-existing platforms. For this reason, Project Astoria and Project Morningwood will both be replaced by Project Swisscheese. What is Project Swisscheese? Keep reading to find out!

Project Swisscheese is a new bridge that allows Windows mobile to run Symbian applications. That’s right. If you thought Symbian was dead for good, you thought wrong. It's coming back and it’ll be bigger, and better, than ever. The employee had a secret build of Windows 10 mobile running on his phone where we can see how much progress Microsoft has made on Project Swisscheese in the following screenshot.

We can see that the Outlook Calendar, People, Messaging, Internet Explorer, Outlook Mail, OneNote, Groove Music, Photos, and Store apps have been replaced by their Symbian Belle equivalents. In addition to Project Swisscheese, Microsoft is making certain modifications to Windows 10 mobile itself. The apps aren't the only things coming over from Symbian. The navigation bar and statusbar have been modified to resemble the Symbian Belle OS and the list of apps can only be accessed by pressing a button located at the bottom of the screen (convenient for one-handed users). Tapping and holding a tile no longer does anything. You must tap the 'Arrange Icons' button to go into Edit mode, then tap the 'Refresh' button to see the new changes reflected on the screen. The refresh button is also necessary for existing live tiles to update, but that won't be an issue for long because the Symbian apps that will eventually replace all Windows apps have no live tile support. Screenshots of the apps running would have been nice, but none of the apps could launch past their splash-screens. The McDonald's employee told me that this is a new issue introduced in this build, but that Microsoft was working hard to fix this and he'd be willing to meet with me again once they did.

Now that you know the great news, it's time to pull a Microsoft and give you some bad news right after the good news: availability.

Project Swisscheese will not be part of the Windows 10 mobile launch later this year. In fact, it may not even be available to the public next year, but rest assured, it will come Soon. The upcoming firmware update, Lumia Eggplant, will allow users to begin running Symbian apps on their Windows phones and the firmware update after that, Lumia Flamboyant Pink, will allow you to remove the Windows portion entirely! Things can't get much better than this. With Project Swisscheese on the line, Snapchat will be nowhere near peoples' minds, as the following tweet confirms:

Ooh... I kinda like what the Stuff Magazine illustrators did with my hair. :) https://t.co/k49l0zdZBS pic.twitter.com/lAFJvY5bGR — joebelfiore (@joebelfiore) November 6, 2015

The last piece of information the McDonald's employee was willing to share was that Project Swisscheese may not even be mobile-only. There are current tests being done to see if Microsoft can get Symbian apps emulated on tablets, laptops, desktops, and even the Microsoft Band, as well. To summarize their near-future plans, Microsoft will scrap Phone Continuum, Live Tiles, and the Universal Windows Platform model to focus their efforts on making Symbian apps run semi-stably on Windows 10 mobile. A Phone Continuum Beta will be reimplemented in 2022 after Apple releases and takes credit for the same feature in 2021. This is the beginning to a new world of mobile computing that we are about to presence.

Is Microsoft headed in the right direction? Leave a comment below.