Microsoft announced availability of an iPhone/iOS to Windows Phone 7 API mapping tool, plus a “Windows Phone 7 Guide for iPhone Application Developers,” as it looks to lure existing app developers to its platform. In a blog post, the company noted that “the learning curve is not as steep as you would imagine.” It also said that “we are planning to provide similar guidance and tools for Android,” but did not make any mention of providing migration tools for Symbian OS developers, following Microsoft’s wide ranging alliance with Nokia.

Jean-Christophe Cimetiere, senior technical evangelist – interoperability at Microsoft, described the mapping tool as being “like a translation dictionary,” enabling developers to “grab their apps, pick out the iOS API calls, and quickly look up the equivalent classes, methods and notification events in WP7.” Also available is C# sample code, which “allow developers to quickly migrate short blobs of iOS code to the equivalent C# code.” Currently, mapping has taken place for APIs across three categories – Network/Internet, User Interface, and Data Management. However, there was also the caveat that developers should not expect mapping for all of the APIs, “simply because the platforms are built upon different architectures and user interfaces.”