Android Apps on Windows?
From:
Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11 with Amazon’s Appstore – The Verge:
Microsoft says it’s using Amazon’s Appstore to bring Android apps to Windows 11. Apps will be listed in the new Windows store, and can be pinned to the taskbar or snapped alongside traditional Windows apps. Microsoft is also partnering with Intel to use its Intel Bridge technology to make this a reality, although the Android apps will still work with both AMD and Arm-based systems.
So, Android Apps on Windows?, not via the Google Play store though – would have been interested on being a fly on the wall assuming those conversations happened! We’re short of details, but this is an exciting play. Microsoft already has a development route to market for Android using it’s own plaforms (Xamarin allows code (almost) once development in C# using Visual Studio to develop cross platform mobile apps) so it makes sense to tie themselves further into Android having abandoned their own Windows Mobile platform.
Using the Amazon Store however is not an assumed simple move for existing Android apps, certainly there’s some hoops to jump through to migrate to Amazon and losing Google Play Services could mean platform changes of functionality losses.
I’m off now to research the Intel Bridge technology that they are using, news is a little thin but this quote from Engadget offers some suggestions;
Intel says Bridge is a runtime post-compiler that allows applications that were originally designed for a variety of different hardware platforms to run natively on x86 devices. The company points out the technology is part of its ongoing XPU strategy, which means it won’t be merely limited to bringing Android apps to Windows 11.
Probably not quite enough to get me to jump to Windows 11, not now that I’m all in on Apple Silicon! But If you’d like to know more about cross platform apps, mobile or otherwise, and how they could benefit your business then I’d love to hear from you.
About me
Andy Flisher is a Mobile App Developer based in the North East of England with over 20 years software development experience. He is available for hire and specialises in cross platform mobile app development, web applications, desktop software, bespoke cloud architecture solutions and providing outsourced project management services.