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

71–80 of 256 posts

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

#71

Post by rightbyte »

bonton89 wrote: post #62
zoeysmithe wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine not only is this a technical challenge in general, but the "best" apps require google integration and google is giving devs and big companies incentives to require the google play libraries, which this can't use. This has been google's main dirty trick since the beginning, which is why you don't see much competition in the android space. Its a few big licensed players. Niche, homebrew, emulated, etc players…

Is the Windows store popular now? Aside from Microsoft dog fooding I didn't get the impression it was very much used even after all these years.

Last time I checked the MS store it was mainly bikini wallpapers. Not kidding ...

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

#73

Post by bikson »

rightbyte wrote: post #71
bonton89 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the Windows store popular now? Aside from Microsoft dog fooding I didn't get the impression it was very much used even after all these years.

Last time I checked the MS store it was mainly bikini wallpapers. Not kidding ...

Good enough.

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

#74

Post by baq »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #3

This is kind of weird since much of the tech is shared with WSL. It also makes me question the future of WSL, though that would be insane to deprecate given it has worked miracles for rehabilitating Microsoft‘s image and Windows’ usability.

WSL is what makes Windows viable in ML/AI at all. They've made a correct (in hindsight it was genius, actually) decision to expose GPUs in WSL using Windows drivers and a shim in a vm. It works surprisingly well.

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

#75

Post by chasil »

xnx wrote: post #16

I found WSA kind of handy to run Pocket Casts on old Microsoft Surface Tablet. Had to jump through some hoops to install Google Play first. What's the best alternative? Bluestacks seems very shady. Chrome OS Flex in a VM? (Scratch that. It looks like Chrome OS Flex doesn't allow Android apps) P.S. Do we make "jokes" about Microsoft killing things off like we do with Google?

Can this be run in Hyper-V?

https://www.android-x86.org/

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

#76

Post by bane »

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…

Not super well supported, but there's a Samsung Dex app for Windows and MacOS (I think unsupported now) that let's you plug your phone into your computer, and get Dex in a window. Runs the phone apps on the phone, gets your android store etc. but you get an "ok" minimal desktop that lets you do your phone stuff with a mouse and keyboard.

After I figured that out I basically dropped all the run Android on a desktop things.

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

#77

Post by kllrnohj »

nor0x wrote: post #72

WSA is a great feature for developers. not having to deal with sluggish Android emulators was a big plus for me.

Are you not using an x86 emulator or something? Forget to install or enable your CPU virtualization extensions?

Because the emulator ain't sluggish, and if it is you'd get that same sluggishness with WSA since it's largely the same underlying tech. It's still using a virtual machine and emulation, it's not like a simulator.

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

#78

Post by dakna »

I had high hopes for WSA as an enterprise platform, not as a consumer platform. Give enterprises an easy way to build one custom workflow app for mobile incl. offline support and syncing, then use the same app on your desktop. There is already great tooling for work profiles and mobile device management. Too bad this didn't get enough traction.

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

#79

Post by ziddoap »

sphars wrote: post #64
xnx wrote: post #16

I found WSA kind of handy to run Pocket Casts on old Microsoft Surface Tablet. Had to jump through some hoops to install Google Play first. What's the best alternative? Bluestacks seems very shady. Chrome OS Flex in a VM? (Scratch that. It looks like Chrome OS Flex doesn't allow Android apps) P.S. Do we make "jokes" about Microsoft killing things off like we do with Google?

> P.S. Do we make "jokes" about Microsoft killing things off like we do with Google? Well someone went ahead and made https://killedbymicrosoft.info/

Fun site! A few products were pretty nostalgic, others were... interesting!

>ILoo

>Killed almost 21 years ago, iLoo was a smart portable toilet integrating the complete equipment to surf the Internet from inside and outside the cabinet. It was 13 days old.

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

#80

Post by xnx »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #25
xnx wrote: post #16

I found WSA kind of handy to run Pocket Casts on old Microsoft Surface Tablet. Had to jump through some hoops to install Google Play first. What's the best alternative? Bluestacks seems very shady. Chrome OS Flex in a VM? (Scratch that. It looks like Chrome OS Flex doesn't allow Android apps) P.S. Do we make "jokes" about Microsoft killing things off like we do with Google?

What's wrong with the pocket casts webapp?

Only available to paid subscribers.
Post reply on HN