Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

learn.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 256 posts

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#171

Post by TeMPOraL »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #65
TeMPOraL wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Outlook still doesn't handle S/MIME. That means it's between annoying to useless in large companies, depending on the volume of such e-mails you're getting.

What email client is popular in large enterprises then? Last time I worked in a company like that it was all microsoft software, including outlook, by policy

Old Outlook, as 'w3ll_w3ll_w3ll said.

Here's the thing though: Microsoft is rather heavy-handed about pushing "New Outlook" and "New Teams". New Outlook is mostly just a wrapped webapp - so slightly cleaner than the old one, but otherwise much slower and less functional. Now, guess which Outlook has had support for Copilot for the past couple months? :).

Right now it's mostly an annoyance - I have to switch back and forth couple times a day, depending on whether I need "snooze e-mail" or S/MIME at any given moment. But the latter is really a dealbreaker. Strange for a product sold to corporations, which makes me think that MS is planning to get people off e-mails entirely.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#172

Post by kotaKat »

pjmlp wrote: post #59
Postosuchus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't make much sense. Building an ecosystem is far, far more difficult than throwing together a small embedded OS. Just ask Samsung and LG (and Google for that matter). Maybe Amazon has enough clout to force all streaming app developers (and game developers, which is the new frontier, and ad platforms) to suck it down and build support for the new platform but I doubt it - plus the ROI is just not there. Why destr…

The rumors are there, because apparently Amazon wants it to be a kind of media center only, and prime products, nothing else. I can understand them, my LG with WebOS is good enough for similar purposes.

They just want to get a grip back on the platform they built. They let the cat out of the bag too long and Fire devices were too much of a loss leader from people pirating and running third party software and services on them that Amazon decided to take their fenced garden and hike it up to a full-on wall.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#173

Post by idatum »

akira2501 wrote: post #113
PreInternet01 wrote: post #18

So, this is the second time a "run your Android apps on Windows" initiative fizzles out: before WSA (which was Amazon-centric), there was a late-2020 "Your Phone" feature that (briefly) allowed Samsung apps on Windows desktops. Not sure if this means anything other than "phone apps run best on, well, a phone", especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop, other than i…

> especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop The SMS and Calls. Seriously, at this point, my phone is the least useful device I own for managing both of these functions. The only utility in having them in some broken down hard to use form is for the slight convenience of being able to use them outside of my home if I wanted to. I rarely want to. I'd much prefer thes…

I have Android and I can turn off notifications. This is my default except for Signal which my immediate family is on (they call on it too).

SMS is mostly SPAM, so definitely off. I would never pick up a call originating from my carrier.

For your scenario:

Do the same for all notifications, and only check phone when you want to, when home?

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#174

Post by fifteen1506 »

dade_ wrote: post #170

Android on the desktop works very well on Wayland with Waydroid and it even supports Google Play store. https://waydro.id/ Great running apps not available on Linux with a touchscreen PC. It only seems to run Android apps compiled for x86, but it is very fast. There are practical use cases, and it is very usable. I haven’t tried it on WSL2, but it seems like a practical approach without reliance on Microsoft.

I've issues with YT Kids crashing every now and then.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#175

Post by wkat4242 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #171
jamal-kumar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What email client is popular in large enterprises then? Last time I worked in a company like that it was all microsoft software, including outlook, by policy

Old Outlook, as 'w3ll_w3ll_w3ll said. Here's the thing though: Microsoft is rather heavy-handed about pushing "New Outlook" and "New Teams". New Outlook is mostly just a wrapped webapp - so slightly cleaner than the old one, but otherwise much slower and less functional. Now, guess which Outlook has had support for Copilot for the past couple months? :). Right now it's mostly an annoyance - I have to switch back and…

Yeah new teams is much less of an annoyance in terms of change as it was already a slow web app and users don't really expect much from it. And the UI didn't change at all.

They bogged it down with too many features and now they're trying to scrape it up by having a slightly more optimised framework, which is basically still exactly the same, it's now just based on edge instead of chrome which we all know are really the same thing under the hood anyway.

So where new teams is just a cutesy little badge on the same thing, new outlook is really a serious deprecation.

And yeah they're trying to get people off email for sure. Microsoft even have banners of "don't mail but teams" under their consultants' emails.

Makes sense from a strategic perspective to move from an open platform to something they fully control and own. It's the old lock-in game they've always played, after their initial strategy of Embracing Extend failed on email (they made a huge attempt but Google was very successful so the same and now there's a kinda duopoly stalemate they can never win)

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#176

Post by wkat4242 »

chris_wot wrote: post #125
wkat4242 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't know how they plan to shaft business users with that. It's so slow. I noticed recently that Microsoft relented and soon starts introducing CoPilot features into old outlook (or 'real' or 'full' outlook as people are calling it at work). Previously it was coupled to 'new' outlook only to promote adoption. But it really sees a lot of pushback from users. I hope this will continue into not canning the real…

Microsoft love to force things onto end users these days. The latest thing is the "focussed inbox". Suddenly our school had it enabled and a whole bunch of people didn't see their emails as it hived them off to the Other tab.

Yeah and their evangelisation makes it really hard to opt out. They're always making it a show to portray users not using it as slowpokes who don't keep up.

Even though I don't want Microsoft to decide what's important and not in my inbox. I get so little I can easily do that myself because I block any and all unsolicited sales attempt forever - which Microsoft is trying to make harder because those people are their customer too! For while the 'new outlook' didn't even have the block sender option. Only the less severe report spam. But I want to block them (and ideally their entire company) forever.

This strategy works great for me and I often gloat over my trash folder with the many sales emails there "I know you're busy, you probably forgot to respond to my 20 previous emails but I proposed you another meeting, does tomorrow 2:00 suit? Here's the invite!". I love seeing them waste their time. Most of them seem actually manual even (despite most not even seeming to have bothered reading what I actually do)

I really hate Microsoft's approach to change management. They're only advocating what's best for them, not for the users. There's no win-win here, it's all them and they don't even attempt to hide it except under a really thin sleazy sales veneer.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#177

Post by 93po »

PreInternet01 wrote: post #18

So, this is the second time a "run your Android apps on Windows" initiative fizzles out: before WSA (which was Amazon-centric), there was a late-2020 "Your Phone" feature that (briefly) allowed Samsung apps on Windows desktops. Not sure if this means anything other than "phone apps run best on, well, a phone", especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop, other than i…

Duolingo restricts some features to the app only and not the browser. Hinge dating app only provides app and no browser option. I am sure there are other examples of use cases.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#179

Post by balakk »

FactolSarin wrote: post #164
jerlam wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're using Android (presumably with Google), there's Google Messages on Web that handles SMS: https://messages.google.com/web/ I used it for several years and found it quite reliable, unlike Apple's way of handling SMS/iMessage on each Apple device separately.

Agreed. I type half my texts in Firefox these days using the Google messages web frontend. Supports RCS too!

If only google can buy some "search" technology for using in this app..

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#180

Post by princevegeta89 »

akira2501 wrote: post #113
PreInternet01 wrote: post #18

So, this is the second time a "run your Android apps on Windows" initiative fizzles out: before WSA (which was Amazon-centric), there was a late-2020 "Your Phone" feature that (briefly) allowed Samsung apps on Windows desktops. Not sure if this means anything other than "phone apps run best on, well, a phone", especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop, other than i…

> especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop The SMS and Calls. Seriously, at this point, my phone is the least useful device I own for managing both of these functions. The only utility in having them in some broken down hard to use form is for the slight convenience of being able to use them outside of my home if I wanted to. I rarely want to. I'd much prefer thes…

+1 I hate having to switch between my phone and desktop which feels like a waste of time when I'm already at my desk, which is almost all 7 days a week.

I would like to have my phone only be used for calls and SMS and nothing else. All the messenger apps, email, browsing is better off on my desktop.

Typing on phone and doing anything that involves multiple apps is much more work compared to using a desktop.

Post reply on HN