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Comment by hienyimba | Hacker News Reader

You can already do this on PC using the Windows Subsystem for Android. The major issue surrounding WSA was that it was too technical to setup for most PC users so we built an app for our non-technical users to solve this. Right now, Google building a standalone app for only Android games (people use Android apps fairly on par with games on PC) and then insisting on a slow rollout will most likely make the product go nowhere.

Calling this now. This is a likely candidate for the Google graveyard.

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Windows Subsystem for Android appears to be for Windows 11. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/android/wsa/

This appears to include Windows 10: https://play.google.com/googleplaygames#section-faqs "To participate in the beta, your PC must meet these minimum requirements:

Windows 10 (v2004) Solid state drive (SSD) with 10 GB of available storage space IntelⓇ UHD Graphics 630 GPU or comparable 4 CPU physical cores (some games require an Intel CPU) 8 GB of RAM Windows admin account Hardware virtualization must be turned on"

But really, there's already a wealth of android emulators for Windows.

There might be a wealth of emulators on PC, but they've seemed pretty sketchy for the ones I've seen.

The purpose of this release, from Google's point of view, is to displace BlueStacks. For as long as I remember, BlueStacks would sell developers all sorts of ecosystem toxic services, like triggering the emulators to download Google Play games to boost download counts.

The automation in bulestack and sorts are pretty great for time saving and farming rewards in Android games. It helps to skip the grinding and let u play the interesting bit. Not sure if google supports that

ASW is actually pretty bad on Win11. I've bypassed and side loaded normal stuff but it doesn't have Google play services so most things fail to properly function. Other than that it runs like a dog on a machine with a 5800x, 64gb ram, 6750x GPU. it's not really ready for prime time.

Does Windows Subsystem allow you to log in with your Google account? That's a big thing here - not just Android compatibility, but the fact that it's part of Google Play Games, so I assume cloud-saved savegames and the like will be working here.

WSA uses the Amazon AppStore so I doubt it supports Play Services.

Really love WSA compared to other emulators. Fully integrated into OS - including notifications.

Was looking at some way to get good openstreetmaps app on windows tablet (pretty much all windows mapping apps sucks), and with WSA i can run good old osmand or organicmaps. Needs better way to install APKs, though. And proper settings interface with permissions management and etc.

Last I checked (early this week) you couldn't use WSfA officially with the play store, only a small store and it was useless for me. There were some hacked versions that supposedly worked with the play store but you had to install a .exe from a YouTube video which doesn't seem that safe.

This is basically Google's reaction to Windows Subsystem for Android.

Note that WSL was born out of the first attempt to have Android support on UWP.

What's sad is that this Android support on Windows Mobile was actually really good. I had a demo device with an experimental build and Android apps were only as sluggish as... well... Android. A Microsoft run by a CEO with more backbone wouldn't have caved and started selling Androids.

> A Microsoft run by a CEO with more backbone wouldn't have caved and started selling Androids

Maybe Microsoft shouldn't have filed an Amicus brief in aupport of API copyrightability (lower court Google v. Oracle) while implementing Androids APIs.

If the Supreme court had ruled the other way, the brief itself would have been Google's first exhibit for willful infringement. Granted, Microsoft filed adopted the opposite view in their Amicus on the appeal to SCOTUS

UWP was shaping good, with Andromeda, Windows Bridge for iOS, XAML Islands, .NET Native, C++/CX, and then they messed it all up.

Nowadays better stick to classical Windows development, or server workloads.

I concur. May also suggest Google to work on their "retied projects" archives directly, rather than repeat this cycle of wasted energy.

Waiting for Voice to die. I thought it would immediately follow gTalk.

well that's something I haven't considered.

I wonder if the number would be transferrable to a different service.

I'm using that instead of my own phone number for sites that only offer SMS verification.

Yes, it can be ported.

Are you saying that because Google wont be invested in this and trying to figure out how to make money off it, that will be what kills it in the end? Seems right.

What I’m saying is that the product landscape is already quite mature. The product adds nothing new or spectacular to the landscape. They will struggle with internal motivation to maintain an also-ran product.

What are the current products in this space? I am aware of Bluestacks, I used to use that a while ago. Have not kept up with competition, so this looks like a good starting point for me to get back into it.

Don't they automatically make 30% of the revenue from Google Play app sales?

I agree, as someone who uses emulators to play mobile games often I don’t see any compelling reason to migrate from my current setup to use this. I’d probably just lose some functionality like the ability to record macros

Does WSA have Play services? I think that is where Google can differentiate here.

It can, but it comes with the Amazon app store by default. There are projects around that integrate Play and Magisk.

It looks like they work by patching the WSA installer to get root ? There's a leap of trust needed, as we'd be putting our google credentials into it, but I guess that's par for the course for what is kind of a jailbreak.

Looking at this as an example: https://github.com/WSA-Community/WSAGAScript

While it's not necessarily a jailbreak (the OS itself isn't the one preventing you from messing with these files) it's very close to injecting Google Play into an Android ROM that doesn't come with it (like custom ROMs, or maybe Chinese import phones).

Google Play isn't just an app you install, you to give it quite a few system level permissions for it to work right. Without root access and a patched system image, Google Play simply can't work right.

Compare it to getting Apple's iPadOS store to work on macOS or iOS. You can't just extract an .ipa and install it like with other apps, you need to modify the surrounding system and drag over some support libraries or the entire thing won't even be able to start. Or try installing Windows 11's file explorer on Windows 10, you'll need the same level of messing about with dependencies and system integration.

One major difference between the unofficial method and the Google method is that there's an API Google uses for remote attestation (SafetyNet) that requires root access to sort-of bypass, but can't be bypassed entirely. If Google's package contains the code to certify the PCs running it, that'd make DRM compatibility possible without hacks upon hacks.

Thanks, that makes sense.

My mental image was closer to a system framework, like adding node.js with npm, assuming that it wouldn't come with the more security restricted parts (NFC access etc) either way.

> SafetyNet

TIL

Yeah it isn't straightforward and you put trust in the community sort of thing. I've forked a previous version of one of the repos that has a GitHub workflow to build it automatically and have gone through that to make sure it's clean. I can make suggestions as to a repo to use but mine is private since they get DMCA notices I believe.

Thanks, I'm looking into this repo (looked to be one of the most stable and popular): https://github.com/LSPosed/MagiskOnWSALocal/tree/main

If you go back in the commit history far enough you can find when the actions workflow files were deleted. I used that (and other repos found via search) to set up the auto builds on mine.

Newbie question, but is there any straightforward way to have Google Play Services in WSA ?

I understand it fulfills the "android" promise, but the majority of the ecosystem needed Play Services is the harsh reality.

I found that just installing the APKs necessary for a Fire 10 HD works (services, frameworks, etc). You can't use the true Google Play Store but Aurora store seems fine. I only tested this on an ARM64 device so perhaps it falls flat on x64 systems.

Is WSA even available without a beta version of W11 and without a Microsoft account? Haven't heard a lot about it since they previewed it.

Why are people using BlueStacks if WSA exists? It seems to be the standard way to play Android games on PC.

BlueStacks has recently ramped up the number of ads. It seems like the management know their days are numbered and are seeking to maximise remaining revenues.

Are you starting a being pool for when it dies?

I'm putting 25 cents on March 7, 2027.

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