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Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

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Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#51

Post by pmarreck »

sudosensei wrote: post #43
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.

Based on the trends I'm seeing, they better be working on the opposite direction ;)

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#52

Post by kumarvvr »

database_lost wrote: post #32

"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." - confusion intensifies

They are merging the meta-data from both stores and presenting a unified interface, branded as windows store.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#54

Post by brainless »

Is it just me or does anyone else think this is Microsoft's first step to create it's own Android fork eventually?

I have been thinking what's really keeping the "new" Microsoft outside the smartphone game?

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.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#55

Post by sudosensei »

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…

Intel used to call this Houdini. It was also used in Android-x86. Last I looked at the Android-x86 sources, binfmt was used to configure certain types of binaries to be translated on-the-fly by Houdini before running the translated x86.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#56

Post by jrm4 »

015a wrote: post #39
handrous wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think Google is in a position to "replace" Android. They simply don't control the hardware; they can ship Fuchsia to their Home assistants and thermostats, but when it comes to phones and personal computing devices, they don't have many cards to play (beyond Pixel, like 0.5% of the Android market). The power lies with hardware manufacturers and developers. Their new wearables partnership with Samsung may help…

I hope they try, and I suspect it would end up the same way that OS/2 ended up for IBM, i.e. failure. Not that I love or hate any particular company; but I do believe in (real) competition and I think this would help foster that. (Strong enemy of my enemy vibes here though.)

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#57

Post by handrous »

015a wrote: post #39
handrous wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think Google is in a position to "replace" Android. They simply don't control the hardware; they can ship Fuchsia to their Home assistants and thermostats, but when it comes to phones and personal computing devices, they don't have many cards to play (beyond Pixel, like 0.5% of the Android market). The power lies with hardware manufacturers and developers. Their new wearables partnership with Samsung may help…

Right, but if no-one picks up the torch of maintaining and developing Android and giving it away to device manufacturers, I'd imagine going with the new Google OS that they are going to do that for, would be very tempting. Most phone manufacturers haven't shown an interest in putting a ton of work into the Android, themselves, even just to customize it beyond adding some shovel-ware and maybe a theme (notable exception: Samsung)

Possibly the app ecosystem will survive, even if the OS itself withers into obscurity, provided Fuscia can run Android apps (seems likely, but I haven't kept up with news on that sort of thing)

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#58

Post by CarelessExpert »

smusamashah wrote: post #16

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. 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…

I know you're being a bit sarcastic but:

> Some years later everyone will realize that desktops are not phones and are meant to utilize more available screen space.

Keep in mind there's plenty of android apps designed to function on tablets with much larger screens. Obviously there's not nearly as many as on the iOS side of the world where the iPad is far more successful, and there's a wide variability in how good they are at taking advantage of the extra real estate. But they're out there.

The real issue, IMO, is that those apps are designed with a touch-based UX, and that doesn't translate well to mouse-based interaction. And one of the few areas where Apple and I are in agreement is in poor ergonomics of a touchscreen on a laptop or PC.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#59

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

015a wrote: post #39
handrous wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think Google is in a position to "replace" Android. They simply don't control the hardware; they can ship Fuchsia to their Home assistants and thermostats, but when it comes to phones and personal computing devices, they don't have many cards to play (beyond Pixel, like 0.5% of the Android market). The power lies with hardware manufacturers and developers. Their new wearables partnership with Samsung may help…

> Its a new way of writing "native"-adjacent multiplatform applications; the OS doesn't matter anymore.

If only someone had thought about that before: a language targeting a bytecode interpreter and an ecosystem of library sitting on top of the operating system in order to be able to run programs on any operating system. In a way we could call it a virtual machine as it makes the OS insignificant. Written like this it sounds like 1994 tech. A shame we had to wait so long...

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