The common latte is typically a bit of a pricey choice down at the coffee shop,
but now there's a kind of latte you won't have to pay for.
And no, I'm not talking about having someone give you a Starbucks gift card,
which sounds like kind of a weird situation. Please buy me a gift card.
That's right, I'm talking about Project Latte, a Microsoft endeavor designed to get
Android apps to run on Windows. But hold on a minute, isn't it already possible to do that?
Well, sort of. Some apps can be emulated with third-party programs,
while others might have an equivalent in the Windows store that were specifically coded for
Windows. Facebook Messenger is a great example of this. But built-in support from Microsoft is a
welcome change if you have apps you're always using that don't have a Windows edition,
and should be more reliable than outside emulators. But how does it work? And what can you expect?
That's what we're here for. It turns out that Windows already has a feature built-in
called Windows Subsystems for Linux, or WSL. WSL allows users to run a Linux environment within
Windows, and although it's primarily targeted at developers, it looks like Project Latte is
going to be built on top of WSL, as Android is a Linux-based operating system. In fact,
Microsoft has already used WSL to add Windows support for GUI-based Linux programs,
so giving users the ability to do more than just punch things in at a command line
is a hurdle Microsoft has already cleared. They've been training a long time.
This would mean that instead of having to significantly recode apps for Windows instead
of Android, developers could just port their apps over to Windows without having to change
them much at all. Hopefully this will mean that we'll see a lot of popular apps popping up on
Windows soon after Project Latte drops, and will almost definitely mean an experience less clunky
than tethering to your PC with that temperamental your phone app. No, your phone! However, there's
one major caveat to all this. Running an Android app properly isn't just a matter of supporting
Linux. A huge number of apps also rely on a set of APIs called Google Play Services,
which you may have seen updating on your phone every now and then. No, your phone!
And wondered, what the heck is that? Play services hook into apps in many different ways.
For example, an app can ask Play Services to handle sign-in, retrieve save games,
issue notifications through the Android OS, get app updates, access Google Maps,
make payments, cast video to TV, and much more. Basically, if an app talks to Google services
in any way, it goes through Play Services in order to do it. And unfortunately, Microsoft can't
just slap Play Services onto Project Latte unilaterally. As for now, Google restricts
Play Services to devices running Chrome OS or Android. And even though Project Latte might be
an Android-like layer sitting on top of Windows, it doesn't make your PC an Android device,
according to Google anyway. Of course, this doesn't mean that Project Latte is suddenly
just dead in the water. Or coffee, as it were. I don't like that one.
There are apps that don't rely on Play Services that should, in theory, work just fine from the
get-go. And it's not out of the realm of possibility that Google will allow Microsoft to port Play
Services to Windows at some point. App developers could also tweak their apps to run in a way that
doesn't rely on Google services, which will probably be less tedious than rewriting the
whole app for an x86 platform. But when exactly might we expect to see Project Latte on our machines
for better or for worse? The current rumor is that we could see it as part of a major Windows
update in fall 2021. Until then, keep on swiping. And remember, not to spill an actual Latte on
your keyboard. Keyboards don't drink coffees. That's it for this video, guys! Thanks for watching!
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