Microsoft has announced Windows 11. The next gen operating system has a lot of cool features, but there’s something very important related to our beloved mobile OS.
Windows 11 will allow you to run Android apps natively. That’s right, you no longer have to use an emulator like Bluestacks on your computer to install Android apps and games on your Windows PC.
Here’s the catch. Microsoft has teamed up with Amazon and Intel to get Android apps on Windows 11. So, the apps will be downloaded from the Amazon Appstore, which in turn can be accessed from the new Microsoft Store. This was made possible using Intel Bridge Technology.
What that means is that you cannot get apps from the Google Play Store. It remains unclear if users will be allowed to side-load APKs outside the Amazon Appstore.
It’s worth mentioning that Microsoft allows Windows 10 users to install Store apps manually using app packages that you can download from third party sources like GitHub. So, it’s possible that we may be able to install Android apps in Windows 11 too.
Windows 10’s Your Phone app is impressive, and lets you view and reply to notifications from the computer. Microsoft has a very impressive portfolio of apps on Android, so it’s good to see the company taking it to the next level. Apple’s M1 computers can run iOS apps inside macOS, and now Windows has a proper reply to that.
Being able to run Android apps in Windows 11 could be a game changer, especially on touch-screen devices and tablet computers like Windows Surface.
Bluestacks supports GMS (Google Mobile Services), so there’s still a reason to use that.
