TESTED: Android Apps on Windows 11!

Windows 11 launched without one of its most anticipated features - Android apps via the Amazon Appstore! Now it’s finally here. Should you though?

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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova

Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
0:50 How Does it Work?
3:00 Sideloading
4:45 Why Bother?
6:50 Conclusion
8:06 Outro

[wrichikbiswas]

Here's hoping that Android Studio can deploy to it and run apps in it directly without having to build and deploy manually.

[JasonEllingsworth]

Year 2000: Man it would be awesome to use PC programs on my mobile phone
Year 2022: Man....what if we could use these apps on my mobile phone, on my PC?

[Victor-khrh]

This could be huge for streaming services where they intentionally make the desktop experience bad. For example Hulu will not play above 480p on desktop

[pripyaat]

In my case, i found it really useful to control my smart lamps. It's really annoying that Google Home / Samsung Smartthings don't have a browser/desktop app to control your devices. You are forced to use your phone. Besides, I only wanted to install the smart lamps app so a full-fledged Android emulator such as Bluestacks seemed a bit too much. For that matter, sideloading the APK to WSA worked flawlessly and I find it really convenient to have a desktop shortcut to directly launch the Android app.

[Sithhy]

My main gripe against Win 11 & most modern applications is that everything starts being hidden behind submenus, even some simple things "Refresh" in Win 11, just for the sake of looking nice but usability taking a big hit

[thejackimonster]

Now (2024) Microsoft confirmed to close down the support already. Aged like fine milk, I assume.

[jhonnythejeccer]

I remember that bluestacks was a privacy nightmare, downloading and installing random apps in the background and leaving files behind even after uninstalling. I used nox for a while, but it lacked some features, and i am really sad that andy is dead now, but this looks sort of promising. It might finally be worth it now to install windows 11 on a vm.

[marcmil]

While you might install the 2FA App on Windows 11's Android subsystem, this undermines the security of 2FA, as only one factor/device (the PC) has to be compromised from the attacker perspective.

[ZonyaZeraora]

You can actually install Google Services on Windows Subsystem for Android using WSAGAScript.

[cis]

This is actually a great addition which wasn't really put in the spotlight in this video. Once ARM will become more common in windows computers, we'll be able to use a whole another library of apps which run seamlessly natively on ARM, the Google play store. Kind of actually having a dual boot of Windows and android

[TejNemane]

The main issue (which had a solution) that I faced was:
I had to buy some apps on Windows that were free on Android, so I used an emulator(BlueStacks).

[TheOnlyNightmare]

This is great news! Maybe pro level apps may make a comeback on Android. If you can just develop for arm and run on either m1 or android or Windows without everyone requiring arm machines it could mean the dawn of high quality apps on Android tablets.

[colororb]

Sucks that this isn't compatible with Surface Go. Its tiny size would be perfect for this

[EnsignLovell]

Cool, side note though, I wouldn't recommend doing 2FA on the same device. Why? Well it's literally there to protect your account, so say someone was mirroring your screen, they might see 1 part of the login, but no the whole thing.

[enzoe.]

sideloading is easier with wsa managers you can find on github and on the microsoft store, no android studio required only adb drivers

[hjr]

Anthony has developed into a superb presenter, a legend on LTT, I always watch when Anthony is hosting.

[TearthyFlame]

Krita is also a solid option for a free art based app, but it would be a higher learning curve than moving sliders around. I just wanted to at least put Krita as a honorable mention in the comments. <3

[drewpatterson]

This is why I LOVE my M1 Macbook. Most apps that I use that are iOS only I can now run alongside everything else.

[lijah_c_]

windows 11 could have just been a big update for windows 10 imo

[DrYak]

As someone who aslo uses regularily an android compatibility layer (my daily driver smartphone runs a GNU/Linux flavor - SailfishOS by Jolla - and I use their official container based Android compatibility - Alien-Davlik), I would strongly advise considering MicroG as a solution to get (something compatible with) Google Services. It's good enough for most common apps.