Windows 11's Android future is secured: Amazon Appstore will support App Bundles
When Microsoft announced the upcoming operating system Windows 11, it revealed that users of its operating system would be able to install and use Android applications on the device.
The company was not talking about its Your Phone app and application mirroring technique, but native support for Android apps. Since Google's Play Store was out of the question, Microsoft came to an agreement with Amazon to integrate Amazon AppStore support into Windows 11.
Users of Windows 11 can browse the store, install and manage apps and games available on it, and use them on their devices.
Google, in the meantime, announced that it will make the switch from using the currently used APK format for Android applications to the new App Bundle format. Starting in August 2021, Android developers need to submit their applications in the new format to the Google Play store.
The App Bundle format has some advantages, including smaller distribution sizes. One downside of the approach is that the new format is finetuned for specific devices, which means that it will be more difficult to extract the app and make it available for distribution elsewhere. Currently, APK files will work on most devices that match the architectural requirements. In the future, numerous files are required to offer these applications for sideloading.
Developers may still release their apps as APK files. The change would impact the availability of apps on Windows 11, as sideloading would be more difficult.
Amazon confirmed this week that its store will support the App Bundle format.
Amazon Appstore is actively working to support the new format, which will provide benefits such as smaller app size downloads for customers and on-demand downloads for features and assets. These changes benefit customers by helping them download specific aspects of an app in real-time as needed.
Unlike on Google Play, App Bundles remains an optional format in the Amazon Appstore. Developers may continue to upload APK files for their apps, or use the new format once it is supported.
Another difference between Google Play and Amazon Appstore requirements is that Google requires that developers submit their app signing key while Amazon does not.
Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system benefits from Amazon's decision, as it ensures that the new format is also supported on Microsoft's next version of Windows.
Google Play has the edge when it comes to apps and games that are available, but Microsoft pushing Android apps on Windows through Amazon's AppStore could help bring the app offerings closer together. Amazon's store may also benefit from the decision to support the App Bundle format without requesting the signing key of developers and publishers.
Now You: would you install Android apps on your Windows device? Which would you install?
here is the link:
https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/appstore/post/50b1ca0f-bbec-48ec-9eea-3c395efb8f9f/amazon-appstore
I really dislike how every “free” android app is basically a privacy hole. Bring that model into Windows would be disaster.
Google playing a bad move here. Part of the reason Microsoft had immense success with Windows XP and Windows 10 was they actually encouraged ppl to pirate them (think free upgrade for Win10 from 7/8).
Making apps easily distributable as apks reinforces Google’s dominance. Forcing apps to be released as aabs with key signing is just counterproductive.
“Google, in the meantime, announced that it will make the switch from using the currently used APK format for Android applications to the new App Bundle format. Starting in August 2021, Android developers need to submit their applications in the new format to the Google Play store.”
umm, this is definitely about piracy….
Brilliant! Who’s gonna look there? MS thinks people like Amazon (HA! HA! HA! HA!) more than they? Amazon’s search doesn’t work well at all anymore. Good luck.
Amazon’s the original plague on the planet; MS phonephreaks seriously need to get outside more. OMG!
What they don’t get or refuse to recognize is the incessant pounding with ads, offers, suggestions when one visits any BigTech store that’s either overloaded with so much it’s unnavigable or so sparsely populated no one goes back.
Beside the obvious that many phone apps are scaled down for phones computer apps; scaled down content, graphics, everything. Probably be a passing fancy.
Android apps are basically useless to me. The few I have (which I can’t uninstall on my tablet) seem like they always want to update. I’m not sure what all the ‘excitement’ is about regarding bringing those to operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS.
For me it would be games, provided they have proper mouse and keyboard support.
There are some apps or games only available on mobile. Also if this takes off, in the future app developers may start developing their apps with better mouse and keyboard support knowing that they will work right off the bat on Windows.
There are many games that are only mobile and many players want to play them, but they hold off, because they hope for the games to go cross-platform, but now this may change and make such games more played.
It’s up to Microsoft to make sure mouse and keyboard work better than any Android emulator out there.
Well, I guess bringing them to Chrome OS is understandable as it is a Google/Alphabet product as well.
Just run Android in a VM?..
As I expected, they don’t need more anti trust issues…
Google announced years ago that it was moving to app bundles for the Play Store. The recent announcement simply included some actual dates for planned implementations of the policy. It’s not like this was sprung on people out of the blue, which has been a prevailing characterization in a good number of reports concerning the upcoming change.
Hopefully someone can port it over to Windows 10. No way i’m running eWaste 11.
Funny how overnight Windows 11 is the new ‘bad guy in town’ towards which mental juveniles have started directing their petty grievances, while Windows 10 is all of a sudden awesome in comparison. Geez Louise, guess someone oughta tell Microsoft how easy it is to flip the opinions of the obnoxious few! ;p
(Munching popcorn and watching all the drama unfold, while my Arch and Debian boxes chug along in the background.)
haha, right, this guys hate everything new comes. always complaining.