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They killed any possible interest in this by going with the Amazon app store instead of Google Play.

They also did a horrible job of advertising it. This is the first I've heard about it from Microsoft since the feature first rolled out in Windows 11 2.5 years ago.




IIRC it didn't even ship with the original Windows 11 release and was a year behind or so. Did it ever even get out of beta?

This was the only feature of Windows 11 that was remotely interesting to me. I guess I don't have to worry about missing out on anything avoiding 11 now.


The problem here is Google would have to agree to it and license the play store for it, which they might have wanted to.


Some of the default shortcuts in the start menu triggered an install wizard for WSA so there was natural ways to discover it (I'm aware of the kindle app, but there must have been a few others). Of course I wouldn't fault anyone for first and foremost deleting all of these as uninvited clutter.

The main issues to me were the hurdle to get the Google Store instead, and the fact that android emulation is no ready yet, full stop.

It was the same issue on Chromebooks so I wouldn't fault microsoft: many android apps gave up on tablet support so they don't expect to be fluidly resized, bluetooth support had no chance in the first place, and a bunch of phone only app were predatory on being uniquely installed (looking at you Line) which made it a non starter to run them elsewhere.

I'm not sure there's any clear solutions to those issues.


The heavy handed tying of WSA to the Amazon appstore is so stupid it almost feels malicious. I've used WSA on multiple computers and every time it's a pain to get it to the point of usability.

Gotta mess with MS store > find WSA > install WSA > get adb working > install f-droid > install aurora appstore.

WSA should have just gone with f-droid or better yet been tied to no appstore by default and just ask for you to provide your own appstore apk on first startup.


Sure, the default was Amazon, but it was a relative breeze to load gapps, and there were tons of great instructions available.




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