The article says this relies on "Intel Bridge Technology". Anyone know more about it? All I could find easily was <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discrete-gpus/server-graphics-solution-brief.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discre...</a><p>Want to highlight one paragraph from that description: "Intel Bridge Technology is run-time post compiler that can be integrated into Android-in-Container to enable certain Android apps – those not written in Java or compiled to run natively on Intel-based devices - to run on those devices."<p>How many Android apps out there are not written in Java? I'm guessing Kotlin isn't supported either. For that matter how many apps are targeting Android devices with Intel CPUs anymore?<p>I was expecting a full VM / emulator, but this doesn't sound like that.
Some years later everyone will realize that desktops are not phones and are meant to utilize more available screen space. Then everyone will come up with "revolutionary" desktop interface ideas and we here at HN will call it out that we already had these back in 90s.<p>I am waiting for that time. Windows 10 is "phony" already and becoming more like it's built for people with low vision. I hate it's UI. I hope bringing android in windows don't turn into another Electron.
If anything, Amazon knows this will really incentivize updating your Android app on the Amazon App Store, or bringing it there if you haven't.<p>And that's good for us because, should the Amazon App Store become more viable for manufacturers, Google might find themselves increasingly losing control of Android, and increasingly forced to make the Play Store more competitive.
This is great. Finally a non hacky way to run mobile apps on a desktop. This is less about competing with Apple’s universal binaries, and more about increasing Windows’s versatility.<p>You can already run Linux on Windows. Now you can run Android. No need to mess around with Archon, Nox, Genymotion anymore. Got a weather app you like? An audiobook player? Done.<p>Hopefully this means more interoperability with Microsoft’s own Android apps, so buying a phone like the Surface Duo and using the Your Phone feature actually does something.
"Android apps will run natively on Windows 11 and will be downloadable from Amazon’s Appstore, via the new Windows Store that’s included in the operating system." - <i>confusion intensifies</i>
Is it just me or does anyone else think this is Microsoft's first step to create it's own Android fork eventually?<p>I have been thinking what's really keeping the "new" Microsoft outside the smartphone game?<p>Google creating a desktop OS market share is not really on the horizon. But if Microsoft takes the right steps it might venture out to smartphones again, and gain market share this time. The HN crowd may not be the best audience for unified experience that Apple seems to be heading toward but there is sure demand for it in the mainstream.
But why? I can think of exactly 0 Android apps I would like to run on my Windows desktop (and I've been an Android user since the original Samsung Galaxy S). Is this really something people crave to do?
This has been possible on ChromeOS (i.e. Chromebooks) for a while now and the experience is subpar. Most apps are not designed for desktop and the UX just feels unrefined. This could be fixed, of course, but on the app creators' side.<p>However, weirdly enough, VPN Android apps work just fine at a system level on Chromebooks. Go figure...
Microsoft <i>really</i> wants to convince you that your phone and your PC are the same thing. But they've failed in the execution of this idea several times now.<p>The fact that this partnership is with the Amazon app store, not the Google Play store, is a strong hint of how serious they are about this, and how this latest iteration will work out.
To be honest I have no idea why someone would use Android apps on Windows?<p>Popular apps can be used via the web-browser or even have a separat desktop app (e.g., whatsapp, facebook, youtube, ...). That is similar with games.<p>Edit: apps which require sensors, such as gps, gyro, etc. wouldn't work anyway...
So Microsoft has its own App Store, then within that App Store there exists the Amazon App Store. Apps on this third layer will then be executable or sideloadable in Windows 11?<p>Sounds like a disaster to me.
I have a few older friends that struggle with tech, but have learned their phone apps well. For them, this could be a benefit to not have to learn the differences between the app and website.
The security implications of this are interesting. There are some apps, namely Snapchat and Instagram, that guarantee privacy by taking advantage of the phone APIs that inform the app about screenshots. You can in theory work around those today with rooted/jailbroken phones, but those are a tiny part of the ecosystem.<p>But if everyone can run Snapchat on Windows, that kinda changes the whole game, unless they support the same APIs. But even then, it seems like it would be trivial to block that API.
There’s more about it at 21:30 in the developer talk;<p><a href="https://youtu.be/egZ82QGshX8" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/egZ82QGshX8</a>
I just went through my phone and there isn't a single Android app I'd actually want to use on my PC. Most of my apps are just hobbled versions of websites anyway, so I just use the fully functional browser with a full sized keyboard and nice big monitor and use the websites when I'm on the PC, and for that all I need is a single browser and the OS doesn't really matter.
I'm super excited to try the Android Apple Music app on Windows! We've been stuck with the bloated, slow iTunes desktop app for so long now. I was hoping they'd announce an update for it along with lossless and spatial audio, but there's been nothing so far.
The Amazon Appstore is awful, and due to issues between them and Google it is likely that you won't be able to install any Google Play Apps, like YouTube or Gmail. There are so many apps that pretend to actually be the official apps too and Amazon seems to not really flag anything from what I can tell.<p>I really hope there will still be a way to sideload the Google Play Store. It is one of the first things I do on Amazon devices.
This is great. It heads off ChromeOS and makes the Surface hybrids even more attractive than they already are, which is no mean feat. Once this is out the Surface Books will cover basically all use cases at least decently. It'll be great to have cross op with their new foldable Android phones, too. Those machines are an absolute joy<p>Microsoft really killing it since Nadella took over
I mean, we can easily do this today and nobody does. Maybe there is a reason for that? Like apps that simply are not made for such large screens? Or the far majority of apps I would have interest on my computer expect a integrated SIM card or other mobile specific hardware.<p>On the other hand metro does not feel right on a big screen anyway, maybe it fits well?
I wonder how they'll manage the Play Services dependency, or whether apps that need SafetyNet checks would work. My guess is they won't, and they don't.
I don't think they added a complete emulation of arm64, so it probably only runs apps with support for x86 (I have no idea of how many apps dont have support, but they exist) like BlueStack and most of emulators - So apple still has the advantage of using the same architecture for everything and running the apps natively.
how can windows run android apps but linux which is base of android itself cannot do that ?
what happened to arm and x86 differences? if rosetta stone thing is being done, why can't linux do that even natively on arm?<p>edit: base=kernel