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Here’s how Android apps on Windows 11 are going to work:
Microsoft's Windows 11 announcement surprised us with the news that the upcoming OS will run Android apps alongside Windows apps. Unfortunately, the keynote was light on details. Will these apps use emulation? Will Windows' existing Linux support be involved? We got our answers shortly after the keynote, thanks to a follow-up developer talk that went into some details.
The feature is officially called the "Windows Subsystem for Android," which should tell you a lot about how it works. Windows currently has a "Windows Subsystem for Linux" (WSL), which uses a subset of the Hyper-V functionality to run Linux apps on a real Linux kernel alongside your Windows apps. (Hyper-V lets a second guest OS access the bare metal hardware instead of running on top of the host OS with less access to resources.) Real Android phones use the Linux kernel, and Microsoft is building an Android framework on top of WSL for the Windows Subsystem for Android. It sounds like we're essentially getting x86 Android running on Hyper-V.
Android apps under Windows should feel just like native Windows apps, with a top-level window, taskbar entry, and the ability to be pinned to the start menu. During its presentation, Microsoft said, "Behind the scenes, we actually create a proxy native app that handles the bridge between the Android app model and the Windows app model." Presumably, that means the system will provide things like a start menu shortcut, icons, entries in the app uninstall lists, and other minor Windows wrappings that will make the app feel native.
Microsoft is trying to do this with as little emulation as possible—maybe even no emulation, depending on your computer and app availability. Both Windows and Android run on x86 and Arm architectures, with Android favoring Arm and Windows favoring x86. If you're running Windows on Arm and want to run an Arm Android app, things will work out great. If you're on x86 Windows, Microsoft will try to ship you an x86 version of the Android app you want. But if the only thing available is an Arm app, "Intel Bridge Technology" is here to help by translating that Arm code into something an x86 CPU can run. Microsoft helpfully pointed out that this feature will also work on AMD CPUs.
Microsoft's approach is similar to how a few other operating systems have gotten Android apps up and running. Chrome OS's Android app support is probably the most prominent example. Chrome OS runs the Linux kernel already, and it stacks a containerized Android framework on top to run apps. If you have an x86 Chromebook, Chrome OS uses Android's built-in Arm-to-x86 binary translation. If you're on a Linux desktop OS, an installation of Anbox will do the same thing—loading the Android framework on top of Linux. You can even run Anbox on WSL today.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @03:57PM (1 child)
>> Android apps under Windows should feel just like native Windows apps
Will the apps know to send your personal data to Microsoft before they send it to Google?
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Saturday June 26 2021, @07:20PM
> > Will the apps know to send your personal data to Microsoft before they send it to Google?
Ans: "we actually create a proxy native app"
Reckon that includes "Microsoft Proxy for Google" so your data gets sent to MS, period.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @04:06PM
1. Install Android app using Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)
2. Click on app icon to launch
3. Read dialog suggesting that you upgrade to Microsoft's native version of app
4. Click "No Thanks" to dismiss dialog
5. Wait while Microsoft's native version of app installs
6. Wait while Microsoft Edge for Android installs
7. Wait while Windows 10 tries to install itself on WSA
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @04:25PM (6 children)
Ask around and you can probably get one for free. If you REALLY REALLY REALLY need to run an Android app.
/me looks at my iPhone …
… no extra apps installed, several original Apple apps deleted. Haven't found a single "must have" or even "nice to have" app yet.
Then again, I don't use antisocial media, so certainly don't want their shitty spyware.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @04:37PM (2 children)
All computers are to be phones now.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @04:46PM
Microsoft already tried to start down that road with Windows 8. We know how that ended up - ugly!
Still, they continue to convert their OS to a phone - each iteration phones home more.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Sunday June 27 2021, @06:57AM
It is the new version of Zawinski's Law: "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."
All computers expand until they can act as phones. Those computers which cannot are replaced by ones which can.
Actually, I used to use Hangouts to make calls via my Google Fi number until Google fucked it up.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @05:24PM (2 children)
So you're atypical to most people with a 'smart'phone, who do fill their device's storage with apps.
Shut up, idiot.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @07:04PM (1 child)
How does not loading up my phone with all sorts of crap apps, especially social media apps, make me an idiot?
Just because it's a phone doesn't mean I want to load it up with all sorts of shit that phones home.
What are these apps that are so essential that refusing to install them makes me an idiot?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @10:33PM
Because billions of people aren't like you.
If billions of people use Android apps in their daily lives, who the hell are you to tell them that they shouldn't enjoy the same software catalogue on their desktop?
You're the odd one.
(Score: 4, Funny) by dwilson on Saturday June 26 2021, @06:29PM (8 children)
Poorly.
There, that was easy wasn't it?
- D
(Score: 4, Touché) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 26 2021, @06:59PM
So, no worse than Windows apps.. Who's gonna notice?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @07:11PM
Software used to be sold based on what it could do for>/b> you. Now it's based on what it can do to you. Because you're the product. This "new economy " is getting old fast.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @08:11PM (5 children)
Hahaha. Witty. Sounds like the Linux queefs think it's 10 years ago, when Linux had a real chance to become competitive with Mac/Windows. Too bad the (((usual suspects))) put a quick stop to that.
Microsoft getting all this shit done is, frankly, kinda amazing. Sure, they're a large corporation, but compared to FAANG, Microsoft's globohomo shit is secondary and pushed to the side because the company for all its faults values deliverables and results first.
What does Linux have? A neutered once-awesome figurehead who was coerced into "playing nice" and now shills toxic vaccines. What does Linux have? The inability to do basic shit like work with multiple monitors. Filesystem browsers that freeze if you move your mouse too fast. A million different re-inventions of the wheel and fucking none of them work to a satisfactory degree. Even your precious package managers are all broken as fuck now. Who codes for Linux? Judeo-Bolshevik purple-haired trannies who would rather argue about pronouns, wrapped in the fag-flag and circle-jerking over BLM, having their daily two-minutes' hate comparing Donald Trump to Marvel or Harry Potter villans, and getting absolutely no fucking work done. They will submit commits with only one code comment complaining about a problematic word another coder used, with the commit comment being the same griping bitch.
Microsoft is embracing and extending the fuck out of Linux. Wanna know why they're succeeding? Because they've managed to make Linux a usable, workable product. Like I said, it's not 10 years ago. I wish modern Linux queefs would shut the fuck up about MUH WINDOZE BUGZ and MUH SECURITY. Linux is now ruined irrecoverably by the same people who ruin everything else: globalist Judeo-Bolsheviks. Only a fag-free fork will save it now.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26 2021, @09:12PM (1 child)
Aren't you getting tired of blaming purple-haired trannies for everything? Seems to me that you have a problem there.
Also, you're really outdated. Linux had its shot 20 years ago, not 10. By 10 years ago it was all forked to hell.
Dual monitor support is actually quite good, but that's pretty much a solved problem everywhere, unlike in the 90s when nothing was standard - or rather, every video card maker had a different interpretation of the standards.
So I'm not seeing how purple haired trannies influenced any of this, especially given the open hostility of many, inctuding RMS, to trans women (and women in general). It's been very evident in forums the last couple of decades.
Maybe you're seeing purple where it isn't because you're overdosing on viagra?
As for Microsoft shipping stuff, they keep getting it wrong. If they hadn't kept trying for the new shiny and instead had just iteratevly improved XP (they had two 64 bit versions at one point, so it was certainly possible to make radical changes) they would have generated the same enthusiasm with their latest release as they did in the 90s. Now it's more like "what are they gtto fuck up THIS time?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28 2021, @10:55PM
there is no such thing as "trans women", you stupid bitch.
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Saturday June 26 2021, @10:22PM
Hate to be the one to tell you, friend, but the only one who brought Linux in to this so far is.. you. I guess you're the queef at this poker table!
- D
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 27 2021, @09:30AM (1 child)
Strange. I've used Linux with multiple monitors for years and it worked just fine.
Never experienced that one either (though admittedly I rarely use the file manager; the command line is so much more efficient most of the time).
Now that is indeed a real problem. But it is not exactly Linux specific.
I'm intentionally ignoring the non-technical bullshit in {[:your:]} post.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Sunday June 27 2021, @09:56AM
You failed to mention incomprehensible icons that are replaced with even less recognisable ones every three months.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Saturday June 26 2021, @07:14PM
Sounds like a Zune to me.