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The common latte is typically a bit of a pricey choice down at the coffee shop,

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but now there's a kind of latte you won't have to pay for.

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And no, I'm not talking about having someone give you a Starbucks gift card,

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which sounds like kind of a weird situation. Please buy me a gift card.

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That's right, I'm talking about Project Latte, a Microsoft endeavor designed to get

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Android apps to run on Windows. But hold on a minute, isn't it already possible to do that?

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Well, sort of. Some apps can be emulated with third-party programs,

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while others might have an equivalent in the Windows store that were specifically coded for

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Windows. Facebook Messenger is a great example of this. But built-in support from Microsoft is a

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welcome change if you have apps you're always using that don't have a Windows edition,

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and should be more reliable than outside emulators. But how does it work? And what can you expect?

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That's what we're here for. It turns out that Windows already has a feature built-in

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called Windows Subsystems for Linux, or WSL. WSL allows users to run a Linux environment within

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Windows, and although it's primarily targeted at developers, it looks like Project Latte is

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going to be built on top of WSL, as Android is a Linux-based operating system. In fact,

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Microsoft has already used WSL to add Windows support for GUI-based Linux programs,

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so giving users the ability to do more than just punch things in at a command line

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is a hurdle Microsoft has already cleared. They've been training a long time.

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This would mean that instead of having to significantly recode apps for Windows instead

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of Android, developers could just port their apps over to Windows without having to change

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them much at all. Hopefully this will mean that we'll see a lot of popular apps popping up on

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Windows soon after Project Latte drops, and will almost definitely mean an experience less clunky

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than tethering to your PC with that temperamental your phone app. No, your phone! However, there's

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one major caveat to all this. Running an Android app properly isn't just a matter of supporting

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Linux. A huge number of apps also rely on a set of APIs called Google Play Services,

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which you may have seen updating on your phone every now and then. No, your phone!

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And wondered, what the heck is that? Play services hook into apps in many different ways.

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For example, an app can ask Play Services to handle sign-in, retrieve save games,

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issue notifications through the Android OS, get app updates, access Google Maps,

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make payments, cast video to TV, and much more. Basically, if an app talks to Google services

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in any way, it goes through Play Services in order to do it. And unfortunately, Microsoft can't

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just slap Play Services onto Project Latte unilaterally. As for now, Google restricts

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Play Services to devices running Chrome OS or Android. And even though Project Latte might be

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an Android-like layer sitting on top of Windows, it doesn't make your PC an Android device,

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according to Google anyway. Of course, this doesn't mean that Project Latte is suddenly

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just dead in the water. Or coffee, as it were. I don't like that one.

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There are apps that don't rely on Play Services that should, in theory, work just fine from the

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get-go. And it's not out of the realm of possibility that Google will allow Microsoft to port Play

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Services to Windows at some point. App developers could also tweak their apps to run in a way that

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doesn't rely on Google services, which will probably be less tedious than rewriting the

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whole app for an x86 platform. But when exactly might we expect to see Project Latte on our machines

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for better or for worse? The current rumor is that we could see it as part of a major Windows

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update in fall 2021. Until then, keep on swiping. And remember, not to spill an actual Latte on

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your keyboard. Keyboards don't drink coffees. That's it for this video, guys! Thanks for watching!

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