The first major update of the still relatively new Windows 11, has brought about an abundance of neat features. A redesigned taskbar, an all-new Media Player, and an all-new notepad. However, the focal point behind the update and what’s been exciting us here at C247 is the official addition of Android Apps on the Microsoft Store.
This is great news for Windows users, as it now gives access to a huge library of mobile games and apps, the same apps many enjoy on our mobile devices.
You may, however, be wondering, whether there was already support for Android apps on Windows PC’s. Well, sort of, emulation and virtualisation is by no means new technology and, has been an unofficial bypass to using Android apps for years through popular software such as BlueStacks, Tencent Gaming Buddy, and others. The only issue with emulators however, is that the support was never native and the compatibility is enabled through a virtualisation process, which is essentially tricking the app into thinking it's running on a mobile phone and not a PC. Whilst a viable option for someone who wants to play their favourite game on the big screen, apps on emulator platforms often see crashes and other errors because it’s not natively supported.
So, native support is great, but what apps are readily available on the Microsoft Store?
Microsoft have used Amazon’s app subset for their integration which gives users all the same apps on Windows, that you can find on Amazon Kindle’s and other Amazon devices (460,619). This includes a range of popular apps such as Netflix, Facebook, and Candy Crush Saga for hardcore gamers. However, the issue is that the Amazon Appstore’s contents don’t include all the most widely used apps you may want to use. It was only fairly recently that they released support for Instagram in 2021, and other apps such as Snapchat are not supported.
There have been unofficial rumours that Microsoft is looking to adopt Google Play’s subset which is 3,482,452 apps! However, there have been no official reports, so we wouldn’t advise you to get your hopes up anytime soon.
Here at C247 we're excited by this development and have a wide-range of Android phones that benefit from the range of apps available on Google Play, check out our range of products here.
