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Android Apps on Windows 11 Review (androidpolice.com) 18

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Amazon Appstore doesn't come with Windows 11 by default, but anyone in the US can download it by heading to the Microsoft Store on their device. It's as simple as installing any other native Windows app -- a good start for potentially getting users onboard. Unfortunately, it's unclear when it'll arrive for users in regions outside the US. You'll need an Amazon account to log in, of course, but the service itself is free. It might be easy to install, but I found browsing and using the service unsurprisingly mediocre. I'm testing this app store out on a souped-up gaming laptop, yet for some reason, the Appstore felt sluggish, taking seconds to load each page and dropping frames when the home screen banner was changing slides. The storefront itself is barebones, offering just two basic categories along the left-side panel and a basic search bar along the top.

As for the app selection, it's as bad as you might've guessed from the jump. Forget Google apps, obviously -- they aren't on Fire Tablets, and they aren't here. TikTok has been predominantly featured on Microsoft's press images for the Appstore since it was announced, and for good reason: it's the only major social network with a listing. Forget Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter -- you're stuck with TikTok if you want to experience the social side of the web.

Games don't fare much better. Looking at the top paid titles, I only recognized two names -- and that was because I knew the Nickelodeon properties they were based on -- not the games themselves. Free titles didn't fare much better; you'll find Subway Surfers and the Talking Tom series, but not much more. None of our favorite free-to-play titles appeared in a search: no Among Us, Call of Duty Mobile, or Roblox. Granted, you can fill all of these absences elsewhere on Windows 11. Many of these titles have versions on Steam or the web -- you don't need the Android version of Among Us to play on Windows. The same goes for those missing apps, from Google services to social networks to recipe apps and smart home controls. It's not hard to access Gmail these days, even if it's not in a dedicated app, and that all begs the question: why does this service even exist?

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Android Apps on Windows 11 Review

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  • Amazon's app store ecosystem is so bad that they're basically trying to become the defacto Windows Android app store just to get more developers to make their apps work without Play Services. I can think of no other reason for them to release this.

    I imagine that it might increase the number of apps available for Fire tablets but their version of Android is just not as good.

  • by BurfCurse ( 937117 ) on Monday April 18, 2022 @03:52PM (#62457380)
    We develop the same app for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, if we can support windows using our Android code base that would be a win for us, but only if it provides the same experience as our desktop app. So far I'm a bit disappointed, poor performance and quirky UI bugs, not to mention no ble communication support (as of yet at least).
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The bigger issue is that Windows 11 adoption is very slow. Most people are sticking with 10 or even 7. Unless you want to lose all those users, Android on Windows is not a viable platform for releasing apps on yet.

      • I don't think people are sticking to 10 and 7 by choice necessarily. Anything even moderately old can't even install 11. I don't mind it so far, but can only put it on 1 of my 4 pcs
        • Using Android on Windows with a Microsoft account just seems like a way to give Microsoft all my information that I was unwilling to give them. (Thus I chose Android instead of Microsoft phone, back when they tried to sell it.) My computers are a mix of: Microsoft Windows 10, OS/X, Linux, and ChromeOS.
  • by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Monday April 18, 2022 @04:10PM (#62457448)

    While in the USoA the amazon App store is the most prominent alternative App Store, there is a plethora of Non-GooglePS App stores in the rest of the world.

    A well known for us Slashdoters is F-Droid, with 100% FOSS apps. There are Samsung's App store and the Bada store, with a plethora of Non-GooglePS Android apps, Sailfish has one, so do many Smartphone brands... One of the largest and most well known ones is the Huawei App store, currently out of bounds for Microsoft, but ... who knows in the future?

    My guess is that this is only a preview. More App stores will be incorporated in the future as the rollout of the ffeature to more countries goes underway. If microsoft is smart, they'll also incorporate the capability to search all the stores at once seamlessly.

    This will either force google to allow GooglePS in Windows, or will strenghten the position of alternative play stores (or ideally, both at the same time)

    We shall see

  • I do believe the feature is there for .net MAUI developers. IMO, other (non-developers) do not seem to be the highest priority - and dilutes the win11 brand as a result. (If I recall).net MAUI was supposed to be released at the start of 2022. However, it has just gone RC1. I just do not see the big value add of upgrading to win11.
  • I'm totally not shocked that two companies who've proven to be absolutely horrible at designing any store fronts, produce a terrible store front..

    I'm more surprised the reviewer managed to find anything at all. They must've used Bing search instead of Amazon search.

  • by bustinbrains ( 6800166 ) on Monday April 18, 2022 @04:32PM (#62457508)

    ...for the reasons stated here. On the Amazon publishing side of things, the app management interface is garbage. If you are an Android developer and thought the Google Play store publishing interface and lifecycle was bad, Amazon's is far worse. I've published apps to both app stores. Neither store is actually good at what they purport to do (i.e. publish apps on the respective app store) but Amazon somehow makes the developer experience feel like it came straight out of the mid-1990's: You have to play "20 questions" in a tabbed interface every time you go to publish a new version.

    Amazon also won't take straight signed APKs. Amazon requires a special build made specifically for their special app store. It's already annoying enough to deal with Google Play, Android Studio, and the whole Android ecosystem, so I stopped publishing to the Amazon app store much like many other devs out there did years ago. If I could simply give Amazon access to the Google Play publishing platform to automatically grab APKs/bundles from Google Play via the API and then auto-publish them to the Amazon app store, I'd be down for that.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Is there some reason only the Amazon app store is available and not the Play store? Is it possible to just download and sideload it?

  • That should work on any modern platform. No need to lock yourself to two bad companies.

    • That should work on any modern platform. No need to lock yourself to two bad companies.

      Yeah because running an emulator is the same thing and equally as useful as integration offered by Windows Subsystem for Android. /s

      Do you ever post on slashdot when you're not incoherently drunk?

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Hahaha, funny. But yes, use the system integration so that you can now have your Widows 11 get attacked by apps. Such a great idea!

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