Last week ended with some disappointing news for Windows Phone fans, as HP confirmed that it was ending any future plans that it had for the Elite x3, which is perhaps the last big WP release. Now this week is starting with some more sad news for fans of Microsoft’s mobile platform.

Joe Belfiore, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, engaged with fans of Windows phone over the weekend on Twitter. One fan asked if Microsoft will continue to support Windows Phones, and Belfiore revealed that while Microsoft will continue to push bug fixes and security updates, “building new features/hardware aren’t the focus.”

Of course we'll continue to support the platform.. bug fixes, security updates, etc. But building new features/hw aren't the focus. https://t.co/0CH9TZdIFu

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 8, 2017

This news isn’t terribly surprising, as we haven’t seen any major mobile hardware or software announcements from Microsoft in some time. However, this does appear to be confirmation of what some have thought for awhile now: Windows Phone as a mobile platform is largely dead. 

Belfiore also tweeted out a few other interesting tidbits over the weekend. He explained that Microsoft tried “VERY HARD” to get app developers to bring their apps to Windows Phone, including paying them and writing apps for them, but that the number of users on WP is too low for most companies to invest the effort into creating WP apps.

We have tried VERY HARD to incent app devs. Paid money.. wrote apps 4 them.. but volume of users is too low for most companies to invest. https://t.co/ePsySxR3LB

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 8, 2017

Also of note is that Belfiore said that he has switched mobile platforms, citing app and hardware diversity as the reason that he moved. While he doesn’t say exactly which handset he’s using now, his tweets were posted using the Twitter for Android app, so we at least know that he’s now using Google’s mobile OS.

Finally, one person suggested to Belfiore that Microsoft try to recreate Windows Phone’s Live Tile user interface on Android. Belfiore said that there have been a lot of people asking about this, but that it’d be difficult to do since it would require apps to support their own Live Tiles.

Did you ever use Windows Phone? Are you still using it?