Still coming soon, Windows 11 Android-app support

Amazon App Store on Windows 11. © Microsoft.

Windows 11 shipped without the expected support for Android apps, but Microsoft announced that a first preview of the feature is now available for Windows Insider participants. This first release provides access to 50 Android apps, including games, educational apps and the Kindle app, and Microsoft promises new apps in the coming months.

The hardware configuration required to run Android applications is a little higher than that required to run Windows 11. Your PC will need 8GB of RAM instead of the basic 4GB and an SSD instead of a regular hard drive. You also need an 8th-generation Intel Core i3 processor or newer, or an AMD Ryzen 3000-series processor or newer. As with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Android applications run in a virtual machine. You can pin Android apps to the Start menu or taskbar and use all of Windows 11’s multitasking features just like a regular app. As the feature was developed in partnership with Amazon, it only gives access to apps via the Amazon App Store.

⇨ Ars Technica, Andrew Cunningham, “Amazon’s Android apps come to the latest Windows 11 beta.”

2021-10-20