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Comment by moogly | Hacker News Reader

But why? I can think of exactly 0 Android apps I would like to run on my Windows desktop (and I've been an Android user since the original Samsung Galaxy S). Is this really something people crave to do?

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Same reason you can run Linux on windows.

They don't want you to go to another platform for anything.

Well for one the youtube app has access to secret forbidden content that the website doesn't. And the podcast app I paid for has a free phone version and a subscription non-phone version. For both of these, when I'm at my desktop, I want to use them on my desktop.

maybe ... they want to stop the javascript-based desktop app craze. E.g. their android skype mobile does not look much different from their skype desktop now.

Maybe they want to steal google's OS

Great, so now we can run React Native apps on Android on Windows. Apparently Microsoft heard we liked runtimes, so they put a runtime in our runtime so we can virtualize while we virtualize.

microsoft is more invested in the javascipt desktop app craze than almost anyone. they have github, visual studio code, and teams all running on javascript, plus the office 365 apps, which are eventually looking like they'll replace the old versions.

> I can think of exactly 0 Android apps I would like to run on my Windows desktop

Maybe you present a minority of the user base and this is not targeted to you. So, yes.

I am running and using 5 iOS on my M1 Macbook and they are useful to me. I wished we could continue sideloading iOS apps, but unfortunately Apple blocked that. And it sucks that devs can block installation of iOS apps on the Mac, although it is technically possible. This is artificial limitation purely for commercial reasons. Bad.

Off the top of my head, what I'd like to use:

WhatsApp or whatever other messaging apps. Banking apps. Pocket. Actually decent ebook reader. Actually decent podcast app.

Apps are becoming bigger and bigger. Some will do loads of processing that only could be done on desktop before

The main reason to want these apps on windows are mechanical keyboards, mice, and file processing (think loading files from your pc). In my experience, 5% of all users want this (relevant) and quite badly, in fact

Yeah? Tiktok's app is way better than the website. Snapchat etc doesn't even have a usable website.

I believe the question is why having the app on a Windows machine if the phone is usually nearby.

If you're already on the PC the PC is usually more convenient.

Typing on real keyboard, for example, is much better than typing on a phone.

Now I will be able to respond to messages and notifications better while in VR! A super niche use that should be way improved by this feature

I have multiple monitors and it's easier and more convenient to throw up an app on my screen and control with my mouse and keyboard than to pick up my phone, unlock it, and use that screen.

Instagram is intentionally annoying to use on browsers. Business users who have all their media in a folder and share an account between staff might welcome this. Post schedulers exist but are unreliable and annoying for adhoc posts.

Yes. I want to run Pleco on my desktop.

I might also want to run wechat there, though that could run into a variety of issues.

WeChat actually has a Windows native client.

I'm aware of that.

They used to offer a way to use it in the browser, too, but that's been shut down.

To kill Chromebooks

OTOH, now that I can sell my Android apps on the Microsoft store, why would I even bother to make a Windows-specific port?

Blackberry tried it with Blackberry 10 and failed. IBM failed the same way with OS/2. If you make your OS compatible with a foreign platform, there is less incentive to write original software for it and, therefore, there is less reason to get your platform instead of the one you are compatible with.

As a user though, why would I get an operating system / device that can only run Android software when I can get a device that can run both Android and Windows software?

And as an Android dev, I now have an incentive to optimize for Microsoft device form factors, which is a lot easier to do and maintain than making a whole port

And I don't see that there are too many developers who are now writing Windows desktop apps who will suddenly decide to rewrite for Android. Cos what apps are native? Stuff like CAD software, Unity, Photoshop, etc - stuff that has heavy complex UIs and wouldn't work well if at all in most Android contexts

> when I can get a device that can run both Android and Windows software?

That's the point. Over time, the volume of Windows-specific software should decrease because when you write for Android, you effectively target both platforms.

> who will suddenly decide to rewrite for Android.

That will be the case for a while, until there are Android devices with capabilities similar to a Windows computer. Apple neatly solved that with the M1-based iPads, as they are effectively more powerful than most Windows devices.

I agree with the sentiment. The only thing I can think of are certain mobile only banking apps. Maybe an SMS messaging app would be useful? Slim pickings from my quick scan of my phone.

There are platforms that debut on phones first and either are limited to phones or launch way later on web. WhatsApp for example was a phone only thing for such a long time.

It's nice to be able to force "Windows only" developers to still ultimately use Linux, so I can drop developer support for Windows.

Considering nobody uses the word "program" anymore and it's app this and app that...

Maybe Google licensed them some of the stack in return for telemetry on desktop users as well. Non-Chrome usage of desktops is a space Google can't get much data from and one they'd really want to access.

"licensed them some of the stack"? Android is open source.

They still need the store and other Google services to run apps in their native ecosystem.

They're not even using the Play Store, they completely side steped Google and used Amazon App Store, so your theory doesn't really hold water.

Ouch... Insane lots of crapware over there.

I am not sure this is for consumers. If you are a developer though, this is clearly pretty attractive.

I can see that, especially since the Android emulators have been historically terrible (never tried the Intel one though, which maybe had some of this tech?).

But this was highlighted in the video clearly targeted at consumers with great fanfare, so I don't know...

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