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Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

theverge.com

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Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#41

Post by NelsonMinar »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #11

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. 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.

Amazon's App store as it stands now is a bit of a ghost town. If apps are on there at all they're often outdated versions. I assume Google won't agree to cooperate with Microsoft and let the Play Store be supported. Anti-trust should help with that kind of monopolistic play but lol.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#42

Post by wvenable »

handrous wrote: post #22
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #11

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. 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.

Google's well on their way to replacing Android, no? I thought a lot of their announcements at events the last couple years had been about their from-scratch Android replacement. Maybe another big company will pick it up, but if not, I don't see much benefit to the hobbyist community over the current status quo if Android gets "opened up" more but also loses 99+% of total corporate backing toward its development. Eve…

Google replacing Android might end up like when Intel tried to replace x86. AMD came along with AMD64 and forced Intel back into making compatible chips. It might end up being an even brighter future for Android.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#43

Post by sudosensei »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

The article says this relies on "Intel Bridge Technology". Anyone know more about it? All I could find easily was https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discre... 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…

I'm guessing Intel Bridge Technology is related to what they used to call Houdini. Houdini is an ARM binary translator which translates ARM binary code into x86. I believe Android-x86 (https://www.android-x86.org) makes use of it.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#44

Post by NelsonMinar »

pcapca wrote: post #36
NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

The article says this relies on "Intel Bridge Technology". Anyone know more about it? All I could find easily was https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discre... 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…

My guess is that apps written in java/kotlin are easy to run in a x86 compatible android runtime. The difficulty is for native code, the arm libraries embedded in many apps. Actually most Android app depends on native libs. For image processing for example. Nearly all games are using native arm binaries. The sentence you quoted is probably related to native code only, which is the difficult part. It looks like they h…

oh this makes more sense: JVM apps run in Windows with some simple JVM container. Intel Bridge Technology is only needed for the apps that have compiled native code.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#45

Post by williamtwild »

Ashanmaril wrote: post #28
blibble wrote: post #10

crappy phone apps on the my desktop PC? just what I've always wanted well at least now I'll be able to play Diablo Immortal....

Actually, in some cases mobile apps are higher quality than desktop versions. Mainly because the standard for mobile is to make native apps for the platform, while on desktop everything is Electron

EVERYTHING is electron? Thats a bit overly broad and inaccurate.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#46

Post by [deleted] »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

The article says this relies on "Intel Bridge Technology". Anyone know more about it? All I could find easily was https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discre... 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…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#47

Post by IAmMaulik »

Jtsummers wrote: post #23
bilal4hmed wrote: post #3

Thats fantastic, but how does this work with purchases made on the Play store. If I bought an app on the Play Store does it carry across to Amazon ?

Amazon's App Store and Google Play Store are distinct stores. Purchases do not carry over between them because they are competitors (in the same sense, you can't return an item to Walmart that you purchased at Target, even if they both sell it). You can install the Play Store on your Amazon devices, which allows you to use your Play purchases on the device (without jumping through too many hoops, like getting the apk…

Great Analogy!

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#48

Post by kumarvvr »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #11

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. 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 an absolute win-win for Microsoft and Amazon.

Microsoft gets Android Apps, Amazon expands its app store and Google is shunted out of the Microsoft eco-system.

I see this as an absolute brilliant thing to happen to the app ecosystem.

I really hope innovation accelerates on the Amazon App store.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#50

Post by Zababa »

haolez wrote: post #30

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. However, weirdly enough, VPN Android apps work just fine at a system level on Chromebooks. Go figure...

> Most apps are not designed for desktop and the UX just feels unrefined.

This is still better than having to use an emulator or not being able to use the app at all.

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