i can upload an instagram reel from Windows oh you bet i can and it's not
the only thing i can do either the preview for amazon app store for Windows
11 aka Windows subsystem for Android is finally upon us so we're going to show
you how it works what it looks like and some really cool ways Android makes your
Windows 11 experience better and you should experience our sponsor too
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how does this even work the Android today runs primarily on ARM
processors whereas Windows primarily runs on x86
Android x86 is sort of a thing but only sort of
with that in mind it's unsurprising that on pcs most apps are going to be running
in an ARM emulator that microsoft says is provided by Intel bridge technology
don't worry though it'll still run on AMD systems and if you're one of the
dozens of people running Windows 11 on ARM hardware those apps will run
natively as well just like on an m1 mac
most of us are stuck with the emulator for now so as for the performance impact
of that geekbench can give us a glimpse
it's clear that the CPU is being held back by overhead here compared to the
native performance but it's not bad all things considered it's 50 higher than
the next best Android device's single core performance and more than double
that device's multi-core performance though if you're rocking that min spec
8th gen core i3 you'll probably want to stick to lighter tasks unlike the CPU
opengl the API that Android uses to accelerate 3d graphics doesn't need to
be emulated and you have the option of dynamically picking a GPU for running
Android apps as long as everything is relatively new there shouldn't be any
trouble running most apps although 4x anti-aliasing is enabled by default so
gaming performance may not be amazing on older integrated graphics unless you
mess with the developer mode it's worth mentioning that even with a
good GPU a min spec CPU may still lag
behind if you're trying to play an ARM-based game the Android version of
retroarch nets horrible performance results running super mario world on
snes9x at less than half the speed of native and the increased latency of the
threaded video option is required for frame rates over 30. this isn't
indicative of every Android game but it suggests that you might want to stick
with alternatives like bluestacks or nox if you're looking to phone some noobs
running smartphones the rest of the subsystem environment
sets aside 6 gigs of RAM and has its own sandboxed storage you can't access the
files inside Android directly from within Windows or vice versa but there
is a file browser within the virtual machine if you sideload an app that lets
you transfer files i used ftp then you can get around this limitation
and if you sideload a launcher you'll see that there's more stock apps in here
too like a camera contacts and the standard Android settings app where we
can confirm we're actually running Android 11. this is pretty interesting because the
other Android emulators you can download like bluestacks and knox all run either
Android 7 or 9. i mean it is kind of fitting for Windows 11 to be running
Android 11 so but what was that about side loading i
just said yeah see up here in america's hat
we're not allowed to use the amazon app store on Windows yet
fortunately there's a toggle right there in the settings app for the Android
subsystem to enable developer mode where you can access adb or Android debug
bridge using the Android sdk you can install apps uninstall apps and debug
apps and any apps you side load will show up in the start menu like usual
unless you're installing google frameworks or something to try to get the play store
running i couldn't but it's only a matter of
time and it's time you got a new caltripper pillow from ltdstore.com the extra
support really helps with those long sofa sessions you know
because of the lack of support for google services however remember
microsoft is using the amazon app store you're limited in the apps that you're
able to install and the features you're able to use
while chrome and youtube for example install and run you can't sign in and
the same will be true of anything else that uses the google account manager
where some simply won't run at all and beyond google services games that
use their own installers like fortnite straight up refuse to install sometimes
it turns out there's a reason why microsoft has been so careful with how
and when they rolled out subsystem for Android with all these caveats it's fair to ask
why bother in my mind there are three reasons
convenience preference and cost you have way more options for two-factor
authentication via Android than on Windows for example and popping open an
app whenever you need to get 2fa instead of unlocking your phone to do the same
thing is a pretty significant time savings
there are also apps that only have mobile options like some restaurants
have mobile ordering but not online ordering and smart tvs will often have
apps to control them that just aren't available on pc
and then there are things that you could run on pc but you just might prefer the
experience on Android especially when the alternative is simply a web page a
proton mail comes to mind and then there's things like instagram where the desktop experience is straight up worse
like it took until last year to be able to post and you still can't do reels
it boggles the mind it makes about as much sense as how antec used to be the
big dog back in the day and they just dropped the ball and disappeared get
subscribed because we've got a whole video diving into what happened there
as for cost maybe you've already bought the app on mobile and you don't want to
buy it again on pc there's also a lot of free photo editing apps on mobile that
just don't exist on desktop like photoshop express vsco snapseed all of
these are powerful and free on a pc you'll probably have to pay your
only free options are web apps like pixlr and native apps like which
each have their own pros and cons mobile photo editors are often dead simple
while getting good enough results and if you're already familiar with it on
mobile you'll be familiar with it on subsystem for Android
for your trouble you get dynamically resizable Windows that many apps
actually already work with along with full native notifications including
progress bars for downloads in apps like fdroid the keyboard and mouse are
natively supported and well obviously there's thousands of apps out there to
try out i'm honestly surprised at how seamless
the integration is for the apps that do work and if microsoft has their way Android
x86 apps might make a comeback to offer better performance and compatibility
with the Android subsystem while it's not as smooth today as iOS
apps on macOS and you're limited to the amazon app store unless you're into side
loading it's a far more coherent experience than software like bluestacks
can provide and if microsoft can give it the love it needs
it may seriously help Windows 11 adoption in spite of the recently
announced need for a microsoft account even on the pro version
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receive a 25 credit today thanks for watching guys go check out our recent
video where we looked at ways to improve the rest of the Windows 11 experience
lots of good apps and tweaks in there