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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

#131

Post by igravious »

drcode wrote: post #4
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 ?

I figure the reason Amazon and Microsoft a ganging up in this way is precisely to address this issue: They want vendors to support a more portable mechanism for purchases that isn't tied to the Google silo.

Oh! What a neat idea, one which had never occurred to me. It sure would be awesome if EU or USA antitrust bodies legislated to force vendors to support a portable mechanism for purchases. It'd be nice if Google voluntarily enabled this, it'd give them a unique selling point over Apple and it would kick-start a (vibrant?) 3rd-party store ecosystem.

edit: the more i think about it the more it makes sense – multiple hardware vendors of the handsets themselves, then multiple software vendors of the the apps themselves. Would surely spur competitiveness and innovation when it comes to app pricing/bundling/sales/…

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#133

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

rbanffy wrote: post #108
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah? Tiktok's app is way better than the website. Snapchat etc doesn't even have a usable website.

I believe the question is why having the app on a Windows machine if the phone is usually nearby.

If you're already on the PC the PC is usually more convenient.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#134

Post by dcgudeman »

rbanffy wrote: post #119
moogly wrote: post #96

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?

Maybe Google licensed them some of the stack in return for telemetry on desktop users as well. Non-Chrome usage of desktops is a space Google can't get much data from and one they'd really want to access.

"licensed them some of the stack"? Android is open source.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#136

Post by 88840-8855 »

moogly wrote: post #96

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?

I am running and using 5 iOS on my M1 Macbook and they are useful to me. I wished we could continue sideloading iOS apps, but unfortunately Apple blocked that. And it sucks that devs can block installation of iOS apps on the Mac, although it is technically possible. This is artificial limitation purely for commercial reasons. Bad.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#137

Post by ocdtrekkie »

kumarvvr wrote: post #48
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.

> Google is shunted out of the Microsoft eco-system

We'll see about this one. Last I checked, half of Microsoft's own apps couldn't run on Android if Play Services was disabled.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#138

Post by bitwize »

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…

> How many Android apps out there are not written in Java?

A fair few games are developed in C++ and run through the Android native interface. Unity games, often written in C#, run on Unity's native runtime which has been ported to Android.

Intel Bridge Technology is, presumably, a way to get ARM binaries running on x86 by AOT compiling them. It is not necessary for Java or Kotlin apps or native x86 apps, so those will run without IBT.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#139

Post by zamadatix »

maliker wrote: post #61
kumarvvr wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Plus it counters Apple, which recently made iOS apps available on macOS. Seems like all the major OS are betting that mobile is going to be the focus of future native app development and don't want desktop users to miss out.

I don't think it says quite that much rather they've given up on the idea of a universal native app platform being realistic.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#140

Post by ehsankia »

rbanffy wrote: post #119
moogly wrote: post #96

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?

Maybe Google licensed them some of the stack in return for telemetry on desktop users as well. Non-Chrome usage of desktops is a space Google can't get much data from and one they'd really want to access.

They're not even using the Play Store, they completely side steped Google and used Amazon App Store, so your theory doesn't really hold water.
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