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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

#231

Post by brainless »

ndesaulniers wrote: post #216
brainless wrote: post #54

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 th…

> Google creating a desktop OS market share is not really on the horizon. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/the-worlds-second-mo... >> For ages now, every annual report on desktop operating system market share has had the same top two contenders: Microsoft's Windows in a commanding lead at number one and Apple's macOS in distant second place. But in 2020, Chrome OS became the second-most popular OS, and Apple f…

You are right but I somehow do not see Chromebook as a desktop OS. Maybe I am wrong, but this is exactly what I mean by the convergence that is happening. MS, I feel, wants a lighter OS for masses. Chromebook is surely dominating this space.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#232

Post by twobitshifter »

cblconfederate wrote: post #100
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 ... they want to stop the javascript-based desktop app craze. E.g. their android skype mobile does not look much different from their skype desktop now. Maybe they want to steal google's OS

microsoft is more invested in the javascipt desktop app craze than almost anyone. they have github, visual studio code, and teams all running on javascript, plus the office 365 apps, which are eventually looking like they'll replace the old versions.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#233

Post by adamdusty »

throwamon wrote: post #122
turtlebits wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used BlueStacks for a while, while IME was never hacky. That said, there was/is little motivation for me to run mobile apps on desktop. This definitely lowers the barrier to entry, thought I have little faith in how Microsoft will present it. Been burned too many times by them on poor UX/DX (WSL, F#)

What's wrong with WSL and F#?

Not sure what that guy is talking about, but some people are frustrated that WSL2 is basically a linux VM, and F# has been little more than an experimental playground for .net features. I don't care about either project, but these are the complaints I hear the most.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#234

Post by adamdusty »

dmitrybrant wrote: post #99

Microsoft really 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. 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.

They had to partner with Amazon or no one. Amazon already has an android marketplace, and there's no way Google, who has a "competing" OS, is going to facilitate users using apps on windows. Google especially isn't going to combine the play store with the microsoft store and let MS call it the microsoft store.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#235

Post by tehnub »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #199
tehnub wrote: post #188

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.

Have you tried the web player? Also the beta version for Android has lossless and spatial

I’ve tried the web player, but it only plays at 64 kbps, and also randomly stops playing for me pretty often.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#236

Post by lmm »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #59
015a wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

It's a great idea, but it will only work if it comes with a UI library that doesn't suck and a software distribution mechanism that doesn't suck. No-one wants to install "an app to run an app", so you need to distribute these applications as either native executables or something equally convenient, and it needs to be completely trivial for application developers to do that or they won't bother. That's the reason Electron is winning at the moment.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#237

Post by monocasa »

naikrovek wrote: post #182
NelsonMinar wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> some simple JVM container no, there's a new NT subsystem to support this: Windows Subsystem for Android, and as you could guess from the name, it is somewhat related to WSL. the NT kernel was always designed to accommodate multiple subsystems running at once. Until WSL, there was only ever the Windows subsystem itself. soon there will be a third subsystem one can install. this is neat, to me.

WSL is very different than NT subsystems (it's based on drawbridge). And NT did support a fourth (or fifth depending on how you want to count it) POSIX subsystem for quite a while, but that's different than WSL.

And interestingly enough, Android support was the original purpose of WSL. It was modified to run an Ubuntu user land on original release for some Microsoft product reason. It's nice to see it coming back in it's original form too.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#238

Post by an_opabinia »

pimterry wrote: post #93
an_opabinia wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few categories of apps this targets. “Clubhouse for Android” category: avant- grade apps that launch first on Android or define android platform. Nonexistent. “Median phone user ecosystem:” The TikTok Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Snapchat, China app ecosystem and India app ecosystem. The experience of all these is bad on Windows browsers or unavailable. ”Games”: hard to say, because Windows is a…

> ”Games”: hard to say, because Windows is a better platform for games than Android by 10x. Note that there are quite a few commercial "Android on PC" emulators already, e.g. https://www.memuplay.com/ , https://www.bluestacks.com/ and https://www.bignox.com/ . In terms of scale, Bluestacks claim they have 50 million monthly active users which makes them pretty substantial! From https://www.bluestacks.com/promote-your…

> In China for example, iOS market share is actually constant around 20% or maybe slightly declining over the last decade

So a user count comparable to 100%+ of the US phone user population?

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#239

Post by whoisthemachine »

an_opabinia wrote: post #72
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…

There are few categories of apps this targets. “Clubhouse for Android” category: avant- grade apps that launch first on Android or define android platform. Nonexistent. “Median phone user ecosystem:” The TikTok Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Snapchat, China app ecosystem and India app ecosystem. The experience of all these is bad on Windows browsers or unavailable. ”Games”: hard to say, because Windows is a…

I for one can't wait to run my little hobby app that I develop for Android on Windows, sounds like fun. I agree though, many typical users will not use this except for the categories you lay out. But I do think that "Median phone user ecosystem" may be bigger than you think - India and China are not small markets.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11

#240

Post by zeusk »

anfilt wrote: post #64
tyleo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping to get an AMD PC sometime in the future. I hope this works on more than just Intel processors.

If microsoft is working on it I bet they would want it to work on AMD CPUs as well.

Yes it works on any x86 cpu with nested virtualization and VT-d (anything post sandybridge?).
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