And there it is - my teaser from this week: Android Apps coming to Windows! Integrated straight into the OS.
really, nothing was for me as i dont have android so why i care?
Hey, regardless of the Amazon/google App Store stuff, surely youll also just be able to load APKs from windows right?
Ive got a few questions about how it was achieved.
*nice*
I have some hope. Catalysted iPad Apps on macOS made developers who care not only do some work to make it function on macOS, but greatly improved the iPad version for power users. I hope this achieves that for my Android brethren.
I think frameworks like flutter and .net Maui will still have a place, they will enable you to intergate better with the target os.
TL;DW ?s. Can you side load Android Apps on Windows? Can you deploy Windows only Android apps? If they are in the Amazon App Store is it opt in/out from Windows?
From Amazon, the Diet Coke of App Stores
Would doing this much earlier save Windows Phone?
Will app sideloading work?
I wonder how many years before Windows becomes de-facto Linux just with Microsoft logos
Thats all great. But the experience is not seamless. 5 different shells. You still cannot access your code on Linux within windows without some weird conversion issues and so forth. Just adding a bunch of different stuff on top doesnt make it awesome.
Thank you mr. Miguel de Icaza
Smells like 2014 and Project Arcadia... Late, but cool to see things finally seeing the broad daylight.
Using the WSLg code?
So this is an AOSP framework on top of WSL? And is "Intel`s emulator" the "bridge technology" announcement? The press release is really not clear and does not even contain the word "arm." Sounds like Windows is doing everything in its power to copy IOS
That`s what I meant. Thanks for the insight though!
Will Vulkan apps be supported? Does this mean we can develop/debug Android NDK apps without needing a device? That would be pretty great, especially if an MSVC-based debugger could be used.
Publish the limited one! Or a redacted one!
Will we be able to sideload APKs?
Awesome news
What if you`re running Windows on Arm? (qcom snapdragon, mediatek)
Since it uses Intel Bridge, will it work on AMD?
But not apps that depend on the gougle play services
The difference did that Apple didnt really bring them all over.
If only Windows Phone had that... It wouldn`t be so dead now..
Whats up with Amazon App Store? Will Amazon get all personal info if I use android apps on Windows?
Id rather just use ubuntu. Companies like Microsoft always have ulterior motives which I believe entails destroying OS open souce culture in the long run.
I was hopping flutter would change that, but you just went ahead and "fixed" it yourselves
What timezone? I`d love to watch it.
Can imagine the UX mess. It will be like running a KDE app on a gnome environment while running an emulated windows app on wine
If the apps arent optimized for desktop, then I couldnt really care less about it.
FWIW you did convince us, problem is finding room to commit resources.
You are great man
I`m curious, any plans to go beyond the Amazon app store? I`d imagine that`s a bit of a bottleneck.
So Im the end its Java. Not .Net (/me runs away) ;-)
Nice one. Does everything work, including Android webviews?
Has Microsoft given up on making its own platform and switched to just emulating others?
Great stuff. What I didn`t understand: does the cooperation with Amazon mean that Google Play Services-dependent apps cannot run?
Do the apps have to come from the amazon app store, or can I just load up any ol` APK?
Exactly, suddenly that app store is not just about Fire users but the entire Windows desktop userbase. This is a win for Amazon too.
Microsoft choosing the Amazon Appstore makes a lot of sense, because Microsoft won`t have to start a new store from scratch, and Windows 11 will make the Amazon Appstore much more relevant. It`s a mutually beneficial deal no matter which way you look at it
Greatly appreciated. It will be a great thing for both platforms and helps compete with apple ecosystem.
Unfortunately not but now I have a mission.
Does this emulate arm or use the x86 versions of native code that`s bundled in Android apps?
I hope so! That market needs a boost.
So when is Microsoft going to start seriously contributing back to the folks (e.g. that actually pioneered these technologies?
So many questions. How much of the Android API is going to be supported? Who will define that API going forward? Are Microsoft having to keep up? Does Google now effectively decide what Windows can do? Are the two companies working together?
And can I use Windows itself as a development target? (i.e. if I click the run button in Android Studio without Android emulator/physical device)?
Cool. Sounds like OS/2
That`s ... actually fairly impressive. If only it was not proprietary
Hope this won`t further reduce the interest in building native Windows Apps. It`s already plagued by Chromium shells... and now you`ll have the Android option too.
Yeah, Im not criticizing the feature. There ARE good Android tablet apps. But way fewer than there should be. Seems like only the big names bother optimizing for large screens.
Excellent! Great idea
Will android games built with unity gain some advantage this way?
Are you responsible for this??
Very nice and now please tell us the three reasons in slide 44
Can we install APKs directly or is it store only?
Unix type shell with real unix apps not the clever powershell overrides that are not api complete? That would be awesome! I`d love to tail logs from a native Windows terminal without clever overlays.
Will this be the thing that finally makes Android developers pay attention to larger screens? Nah, probably not
Seriously rad move
Thank you! But honestly, why wasnt this done sooner? Could have saved windows mobile
Will that need Hyper-V?
I cried when I saw that and thought why oh why?
Is it Google apps? This is the Amazon app store... Looks like Google didn`t want to Play?
Somehow I knew this is what you were talking about :)
Nice work. Looking forward to the team talking about the decision to recreate the bottom-of-display nav controls within the window. The consistent look w/ most android devices makes it look like a system emulator rather than a fully integrated experience. have not used this one in a while It`s great, thank you for advocating these changes
So exciting, so good. It`s nice to see Windows partnering with Google to take iOS/MacOS head on. Being able to access apps like Google Photos will be an amazing win.
Windows can now run your favorite Linux distribution, and your Android apps side-by-side with all your existing Windows software And for developers, Visual Studio and Code come with batteries included for this new multi-platform world.
It`s MAUI time! Yeah but through Amazon app store so many apps missing and many are behind their play store equivalent
interested to hear more on how this works
will it run in some sandbox to make them at least somehow secure ?
Open Source Windows is next?
Ummm what. Like what.
Nice, but its Amazon powered. This means no Play Services?
well done!! this is fantastic
I was going to ask you if that was it. Nice!
