The shunning of Windows and Windows Phone by the US banking industry continues in earnest. After Bank of America dropped support for their Windows and Windows Phone applications earlier this month, Chase has followed suit. Over the weekend, Chase users who attempted to use the app were greeted with a notification that the app was no longer supported and that users needed to go to the Chase website through their browser. Like Bank of America, users of Chase also found problems using the mobile website in Internet Explorer on their Windows Phone.
It is just the latest in a series of high profile and important apps being dropped for Windows Phone at a time where the future for the platform and universal apps is as bright as it has ever been.
Like BofA customers, Chase customers are best served to visit the bank’s website on their tablet or PC or use the full site on their Windows Phone to avoid any login issues. Also like BofA, Chase is reporting that the dropping of the app’s support is due to low usage. This is certainly believable but the timing is horrible. We are only months away from Windows 10 being released on all devices. Developers could (and should I would argue) simply put their existing apps in stasis but not pull them. In my open letter in January I urged developers to keep the faith and wait out this challenging transition going on right now. The will allow them to develop true Universal Apps for Windows 10 which would be ready at nor near the launch but also would allow users to do mobile banking. As it stands now, Bank of America and Chase are likely looking at 6 months to a year after Windows 10’s launch to release an app – if ever.
What has been interesting is that a number of banks across Europe and Asia have been releasing Windows Phone apps. The trend to closing them down seems to be a US-only move which is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Wells Fargo has continued to support and given all indications that they will continue to support Windows Phone.
