The App gap is still an annoying problem for Windows Phone users not only here in Ireland but across the world,However there is good third party options available to those who want some big named apps but the main problem really is local apps.Again some companies are against third party devs and of late Snapchat has been one of the main victims who have suspended accounts.
Banking apps is another big area which highly annoys Windows Phone users,over the last two years users have been fobbed off with the same old script WE CURRENTLY HAVE NO PLANS AT THE MOMENT.
Similar to the reply pictured below..
Over the last few days the Bank of Ireland iOS and Android apps had problems,so we went looking for answers and decided to have one more attempt of perhaps finding some kind of definitive answer on the WP app..
On asking customer service we were told that is been worked on and there was a Q & A we missed on the topic which yields the following..
Yes is the short answer!
As I’m sure you are aware, at present Android and iOS are the largest OSs by market share for smart phones. This has been the case since we decided to build the mobile app – hence our decision to start there. We build separately for each OS since we believe it allows us to provide a better user experience for users on different phones (things behave differently on Android, Google, Windows, etc…
The down side to this approach is that there is substantial overhead in each additional OS added. However, Windows is the ‘third OS’ for mobile (overtaking RIM) so we are looking to add it to our supported OS list. At present it remains on the ‘candidate change list’ so I can’t promise a date but I would hope we can do this sooner (note I am still talking bank speed here…!) rather than later. A big push will be the speed at which Windows OS 8 for phones is adopted. In the interim, I apologise to you and anyone else who struggles with the online site on a mobile.
Jonathan (and the Bank of Ireland Mobile Team)
So going forward it could be good news and may spark other banks to provide the banking apps that Windows Phone users have wanted for 2 years.