Microsoft has updated its Windows Bridge for iOS developer tools with support for Apple's CoreFoundation framework along with adding new layout APIs and more sample apps and code.

Windows Bridge for iOS, also known by its code name "Project Islandwood", has been available as an open-source project for some time. It allows iOS app developers to quickly port their apps so they can be converted to Windows 10 UWP apps. In a blog post, Microsoft explained why adding CoreFoundation support will be a big benefit for developers:

CoreFoundation classes form the underpinning of most iOS apps. If you're an iOS developer, you've almost certainly used classes like NSString and NSArray; these are both part of the wide array of object types and functionality provided by the Foundation framework, which is the Objective-C-bridged version of CoreFoundation. The iOS bridge team has merged the official, canonical implementation of CoreFoundation into the WinObjC code base. As a result, the complete CoreFoundation/Foundation framework is now available for use in the bridge.

The new versions of the bridge also adds support for NSLayoutAnchor and UILayoutGuide, which are two new classes added by Apple to iOS 9 to simplify adding layout constraints to views:

This greatly reduced the amount of code required to create simple, edge-anchored layouts that scale properly when the host screen or window is rotated or resized.

Finally, the new release adds more samples and code developers can use for assistance in moving iOS apps to Windows 10:

The samples repo currently offers two kinds of sample projects: bite-size samples and full apps. The bite-size sample projects demonstrate particular functionality and common scenarios with the iOS bridge, while the full apps showcase the end-to-end journey of a developer using the bridge.

Check out the latest Windows Bridge for iOS tools at GitHub