PayPal is shutting down its Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and Amazon apps

PayPal is thinning the number of mobile operating systems supported by the company's flagship app down to just two: Android and iOS. The PayPal mobile apps for Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and Amazon's Fire OS will be discontinued as of June 30th.

It's fairly common to see these decisions for Windows Phone and BlackBerry, but a little less regular to see a company of PayPal's stature just up and abandon Amazon's fork of Android, which runs on Kindle Fire tablets and the failed Fire Phone. PayPal doesn't offer much of an explanation for the decision, but claims it'll lead to better apps for the remaining platforms. "It was a difficult decision to no longer support the PayPal app on these mobile platforms," said Joanna Lambert, PayPal's VP of consumer product, in an announcement on the company's blog. "But we believe it’s the right thing to ensure we are investing our resources in creating the very best experiences for our customers."

PayPal is quick to point out that despite being left without a native app, affected users will still have full access to PayPal's mobile website for account management and money transactions. There are other options, too; BlackBerry users can still send peer-to-peer payments with PayPal through BBM. And on the Windows side, Outlook.com users can enable the PayPal add-in to send payments right from the email app.

"We remain committed to partnering with mobile device providers, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers," Lambert said. PayPal claims that putting a sharper focus on just the two apps will allow the company to "innovate and make enhancements to PayPal’s mobile experiences to give our customers the best possible ways to manage and move their money."

• SourcePayPal