Even with Microsoft gearing up to release its next flagship Lumia 950 and 950XL, there are still those who continue to pummel Windows Phone one way or another. Some attack Windows Phone for their lackluster specs and seemingly underpowered insides. But what most don’t understand is that Windows Phone OS runs so well on lower specs, there’s no need for higher specs like what Android phones have. Keeping the hardware manageable and optimized with the software allows Lumia prices to not be as pricey as the competition. The next continuous attack on Windows Phone is its app ecosystem and lack of popular core apps. Then there are those who complain that even when there are popular core apps there, they’re not as polished as the iOS or Android versions. Now Microsoft is hoping to change at least that second complaint by open sourcing Windows Bridge.

The tool, announced at Microsoft’s Build 2015 conference earlier this year, is designed to help Android and iOS developers more easily port their apps over to the Windows platform. Today, Microsoft released an early version of the iOS iteration of Windows Bridge (previously dubbed “Project Islandwood”) as an open-source project, with all components available to download via Github.

“We’re releasing the iOS bridge as an open-source project under the MIT license. Given the ambition of the project, making it easy for iOS developers to build and run apps on Windows, it is important to note that today’s release is clearly a work-in-progress — some of the features demonstrated at Build are not yet ready or still in an early state,” reads Microsoft’s blog post. “Regardless, we’d love for the interested and curious to look at the bridge, and compare what we’re building with your app’s requirements. And, for the really ambitious, we invite you to help us by contributing to the project, as community contributors—with source code, tests, bug reports, or comments. We welcome any and all participation in building this bridge.”

While the naysayers continue to sing the death of Windows Phone, Microsoft continues to tune their fanboy chorus line out and concentrate on making Windows Phone better. I’d take a page from Microsoft as a user and ignore the hardcore iOS and Android fanboys and root for Microsoft to improve their platform. Having three major mobile OS’s on the market is only better for us as consumers and we should be embracing them all in harmony. Why? Because when you have three competitors all doing well in the space, that breeds competition, innovation, creation and drive which is a win for consumers. We’re hoping that the open sourcing of Windows Bridge does attract the developers that Windows Phone so sorely needs. Now if we can only get Google to give up their API’s!

What do you think of Microsoft open-sourcing Windows Bridge? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.