A month ago Microsoft suddenly discontinued Windows Subsystem for Android on Windows 11, of course this announcement is quite surprising considering that WSA itself is one of the features highlights when Windows 11 was first announced in 2021.
Also Read: Two Years Since the Birth of Windows 11, WSA Still Has Preview Status!
But friends, there is one interesting piece of information, Microsoft and Tencent recently announced a partnership that allows customers in China to run Android applications from the Microsoft Store on Windows 11.
Regarding this matter, from post The release did not explicitly mention Windows Subsystem for Android or countries other than China, but there are several clues that suggest this new initiative may continue where the WSA left off. For example, blog post said the “computer version of the Tencent App Store” uses Android OS based on Android 13, which is the last Android update for WSA.
Additionally, it will also leverage Intel Bridge and Celadon to allow running ARM applications on x86 systems and allow them to access the camera, microphone, GPS, and even the NPU. Microsoft and Tencent want to make Android apps behave like native apps with support for resizable windows, search, shortcuts, installation from the Microsoft Store, and other things that sound all too familiar to what WSA offers.
PC has a large user base, and we hope to cooperate with Microsoft Store and Intel to provide technology, traffic and commercialization support to mobile developers in cross-terminal integration, jointly promote the prosperity and development of the PC application ecosystem, and provide users a better cross-terminal experience.
Says Lin Songtao about this partnership (translated from Chinese)
Then, in this announcement, Tencent also plans to bring more than 1,500 mobile applications and games to the Microsoft Store.
So, with this announcement, it is possible that WSA will return to life with a new name that is separate from the Amazon App Store and perhaps integrated with the Tencent App Store, but of course this presence may still be very long because this Microsoft and Tencent collaboration initiative has only just begun.
However, it would be very interesting if WSA came back to life even though perhaps the market would be specifically in China. Why? because as we know the US and China often conflict regarding policies so if this WSA is successful, it will probably be exclusive to China and not throughout the world.
But we'll see, guys, apart from that, don't get your hopes up because this news is still new and this partnership has just started. What do you think? Comment below guys.
Via: Microsoft
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