What, you can order delivery from your laptop now? I'm going to gain weight because of this. You're already fat... [ITSub's it It's all here] [Electronics fan ITSub's it It's all here]
Hello, it's ITSub Today is about Windows! A new feature that was revealed on Windows 11! Running Android apps on Windows 11? When Windows 11 preview was revealed I made a video as to what have changed but I didn't talk about this feature we'll look over today. Because on the preview version although MS mentioned that this feature will be added it wasn't actually added (On preview version) And on October 4, 2021 Windows 11 was upgraded from beta to release but the aforementioned feature was still not added. But recently! A beta of this feature was revealed so even though it's not a release version yet you can try it out as beta. [1. What is that feature?]
The official name for this is Windows Subsystem for Android shortened as WSA. To put it easily just as you can run iOS apps on Apple's M1 it's a feature that lets you run Android apps on Windows. You may ask, why we can't run Android apps on Windows And it's actually very tricky because the architecture for each is very different. [Intel/AMD]
So to put it broadly, the processor used in Intel or AMD is X86 architecture and the architecture used in smartphones such as Qualcomm or Apple is ARM architecture. So as these two are different the commands are different making them incompatible on apps. So when Apple's M1 was released [Intel MacBook Pro X86 Architecture - M1 MacBook Pro ARM Architecture]
they moved from Intel's X86 to ARM [iPhone/iPad ARM Architecture = M1 MacBook Pro ARM Architecture]
enabling the iOS apps to be used. But through Intel's technology called Bridge Microsoft now provides a compiler usable on various architectures allowing for the usage of Android apps. Then is it only for Intel? No! It can be used on AMD as well Can't you just use app players such as BlueStacks or Nox? Yes, you could but if this feature works right app players such as BlueStacks or Nox use lots of background resources but this will let you use Android apps on Windows like just another program so that's different. In other words, you can use it faster and smoother. How do I install WSA? You can find out how to install and how to register for the program on Beta if you look at the official documents provided by MS. But if you try it it can be... well, very bothersome so I recommend just watching this. [If you can hold the desire] So... if you look here [Even I'm confused]
Where was it, where are you You can run WSA. It shows you the settings that you can change for Android apps on Windows And now you can use Android apps. 2. How to install Android app As MS have already told us there are two methods for this. First, you can install Android apps through Amazon Appstore provided through a partnership between MS and Amazon. But... this when I logged in with my Amazon ID my laptop is set for USA but my Amazon account is Korean so it says, "You can't use Amazon Appstore on your country" And those who already installed it told me that Amazon Appstore doesn't have many apps. So what you can do is, you can download [What is APK? The file extension for Android programs]
APK files which are widely used on Androids. This, you can download the Android SDK platform and activate the developer mode here and you can see the ADB address here So, on tablets! Especially... Lenovo P11 or other Android smartphones you connected them to PC with cables to remove apps or change ROMs, right? Likewise, here you can connect to the Android's inner address to install APK through ADB. I'll show you an example. First, the Android SDK I've mentioned, I had it unzipped here and if you look below, I got an APK file called Papago from Naver. Press 'Win+X' to run the terminal manager [It's been a while since I did this]
cd c We've moved to SDK folder, right? And then to connect you can do ADB Connect and input IP address. The IP address is here, right? Use this address adb connect 127.0.0.1:58526 and... huh? What? [Forgot something]
Wait x5, You need to, uh, input Okay! Now we're connected! And you can start installing ./adb install -r Naver Papago.apk Huh? What. Because I changed the app name? I changed the name to Naver It's working properly now So when you're done, it'll say success and Papa... Because it needs to translate to Android it takes a while at first. If you be patient, you can run the Android app like this. I'm a man. The apps you've installed like this are considered a program in Windows, unlike BlueStacks or Nox. If you want to remove it right click here [Hands react to MapleStory]
Wait, hold on Wow, it's effective Right click and then if you click delete you can get rid of Android apps as if you're removing normal Windows program. The screen size, too you can adjust real-time [3. App test]
I tested out some apps beforehand. For example Uh... in case of Baemin it works fine right? If you want some food delivered... Let's see... What's good around here? Fried chicken... since I like those When you're getting them you can look at the menu right away and read reviews And Instagram, too I've brought up the app like this and you can log in and change screen size, all without problem. Here, without me setting up further you can share the camera, mike or various inner storages and use them. If I took a picture right here [Froze]
Wait, what Uh... It's still in beta so there are some lags but my point is you can use mike, camera or other PC devices on Android app as if they're native. Also the games I'm logged in, and although a little slow you can still play the game. Wow... the directions it receives the input but you can't give it continuously so like this... Single hits! But! There was a big downside Normal apps you can install by using APK files but many service apps like games make use of Google Play Service so if your app is relying on it it's not installed so you can't use it. But! Our developers didn't stay put. A developer uploaded the method to use it on github. By using this method you can install Google Play Service normally so you can use various Android apps without problem But this is not an official method provided by Google. So even if you somehow found a way to install it and even if this becomes a released version on Windows 11 later on you won't be able to use Google Play Service normally. Unless Google and MS cooperate. So! As it takes a while to install I'll be back in a moment. [4. Test after additional work]
So, the installation is complete Once you've installed it, it's just a bypassing method so it's not too different from your normal WSA But if you look carefully what wasn't there... the 'Play Store' you can see the Google's service has been installed If your laptop or PC supports touch screen you can make use of it as well If you do this, without the complex process of installing through APK you can install all apps easily like you do on your Android using Play Store. Of course... it's not that I've installed every app out there But I'm guessing you'll be able to install most of them For instance... let's try installing Asphalt 9 Looking at it like this it's like the boundary between Windows and Android is breaking Wow... look at the storage space, it's also in synchro with PC And... this is KakaoTalk for PC and this is KakaoTalk for Android and even though the UI is a bit weird but this... I don't think you can use it like this So anyhow... Like so (Same program) runs separately.. Also in case of YouTube app Like this! Wow... I can just bring it up and it runs very fast without delay Flexcil Wow... it's fast as well! The pen works fine and the reaction is pretty quick. Although it wouldn't be as fast as the native I'll need to do some more testing but the Android apps feels much faster than they were when you used app players like BlueStacks or Nox. The reaction is especially fast and you can see the YouTube is fast as well. [5. Pros and Cons]
So overall, I also tried it before installing it like this but Pros? You can touch and use Android apps right away and sometimes Android apps are better than the programs or websites on Windows, right? For example the apps like YouTube or Twitch you can bring the Android apps on Windows and watch right away And in case of clipboard everything's running on a single machine so they can be shared and the fact that camera, mike and all are considered native was very impressive. But the cons are, as it's still in beta if you use it for long the app often freezes or crashes and it takes quite a bit of resource If you look here, WSA is running and up here you can see it's taking a huge amount of memory. And I'm not running too much at the moment but if you run video games or so, it takes a bunch of resource. It was something I was looking forward to but I felt that it wasn't much different from app players. Though you can run the Android apps on screen like this so it'd be good to use multiple apps on a second monitor I think. YouTube feels almost native, as the speed is real fast and overall lighter apps run very quickly. It's still in beta so I can't say it's good or bad but it's smoother than you'd think so when it officially releases.. it's something to look forward to. But! As I've shown you already Google's service is not provided officially yet so you can't use Android apps as freely. and they're hard to install as well. Even if this becomes official on Windows 11 I don't think it's likely that Google will give support. Because, Google is using its own Chrome OS and if they support Google services on Windows Well... there isn't much benefit to them So! That's it for today and although I tested only in beta version I can say the MS is trying hard, harder than you might think... If this officially comes out and supports Google Play service as well I think it'd be a very useful feature. And it takes up lots of RAM at the moment but if this becomes real useful then more RAM than now! Won't people buy more RAMs? So even for gaming purposes, 16GB is enough but the standard becomes 32GB! It's still in beta but it's pretty fun. Very smooth, of course if you run more than 2 it lags a bit but if you run just one it's smooth and even video games, one is okay It runs fine but sometimes if you leave it on and don't do anything it just crashes on its own It's beta, still in beta so it could happen Yeah