On February 15, Microsoft released its first big public update to Windows 11 with the long-awaited ability to use Android apps. What do they like? Well, we covered that when they first hit the Windows 11 Insiders Beta Channel, and so far it looks largely the same – so here’s our October 2021 story and video.

Original story:

Microsoft has released the first preview of its Android app support in Windows 11. It’s available for testers in the Windows 11 Beta Channel, which means you’ll need to join the Windows Insider program to access it. I installed the preview build on two systems – a gaming rig with a Core i9 11900K and Microsoft’s Surface Pro X – to get an exact idea of ​​how Android apps run on Windows 11.

The app installation experience is very simple. Microsoft has partnered with Amazon, so the Microsoft Store lists apps but sends you to Amazon’s Appstore app to install or update them. This also installs a Windows Subsystem for Android in the background, which is the core technology that powers Android apps running on Windows 11.

Applications run efficiently inside a virtual machine, contained in their own world but able to sit side-by-side with other Windows applications. You can pin Android apps to the Start menu or taskbar and use all Windows 11 windowing and multitasking features like a regular desktop app.

Although there are only 50 apps officially available in this preview, I was able to install Amazon’s Kindle app, BBC Sounds app and a bunch of games to test how well Windows 11 handles games mobiles.

Both on the Surface Pro X (an Arm-powered device) and on my Intel-powered gaming rig, apps ran surprisingly well. I was able to run them with Word, Chrome, and other desktop apps as if they were just normal Windows apps.

Apps show up in search results as if they were normal Windows apps, and integration into the Start menu and taskbar makes them feel like any other app. It’s surprisingly transparent and a well-integrated solution.

The preview isn’t perfect though. I noticed 100% CPU usage when I attempted to run four Android games side-by-side using Windows 11’s Snap Layouts feature on my gaming PC. Everything suddenly felt sluggish , until a few seconds later it came back to life and the CPU usage returned to normal.

Likewise, games didn’t seem to run very well on the Surface Pro X with low frame rates and stutter. This is a preview though, so I’m hoping to see some performance improvements before this ships to all Windows 11 users.

I also noticed in Final Fantasy XV that the game reloads when you try to resize it, and that some apps and games don’t resize particularly well. It all depends on how developers have built their apps, but expect most to work best in phone-like dimensions.

The question is whether you want or need Android apps. Personally, I only need a handful, like the Kindle app or some smart home apps, but Android mobile games are what I’m most interested in.

Bluestacks has been supporting Android apps on Windows for years, and the company has leaned heavily into supporting mobile games on Windows. Microsoft is late to the party here, but its subsystem is clearly the result of years of work extending Windows to Linux kernels and GUI applications. While Microsoft is busy making Android apps work on Windows 11, Bluestacks is in the process of integrating Android apps into the browser and running them in the cloud.

Support for Microsoft’s Android apps currently relies on the Amazon Appstore, which offers only a fraction of the apps available on Google’s Play Store. It’s inevitable that someone will load it on Windows 11 and unlock many other apps with it, but Microsoft won’t officially support it.

Still, the initial preview is much fuller and smoother (on the right hardware) than I expected. Microsoft’s initial release on the Windows Insider beta channel also suggests that it could show up for anyone using Windows 11 much sooner than expected.

Update February 15, 2022: Added that Windows 11 Android app support is now available in public preview.