Android apps are officially available on Windows 11 and out of beta

It’s my opinion that Android apps running on Windows 11 offer little to no value for most people when they could just pick up their Android tablet or their Chromebook (or even their phone). This is especially true when you consider the fact that the Amazon App store is the delivery method for these experiences. Despite this, some people may be able to benefit from having certain apps on their desktop operating system.

We’ve already spoken in the past about what these apps coming to Windows means for Chromebooks, so I won’t dive in too much there today, but the answer is “not much”. Until Amazon matches the innumerable titles that the Google Play Store offers, it will never be more than an add-on service to an OS that utilizes full-fledged software experiences.

Announced today, the Windows Subsystem for Android, (which by all counts should technically be called “Android Subsystem for Windows”, right?) just exited beta and is now available in 31 regions. This means that anyone running W11 that’s interested in installing Android apps and testing them out can do so fairly easily.

First, you’ll need to enable the Windows Subsystem for Android, and the easiest way to do that is by simply visiting the Windows App Store and installing the Amazon Appstore…yeah, that’s not confusing at all. Anyway, once you’ve done that, you’ll have access to over 50,000 apps. Just don’t expect to install any Google apps like Tasks, Calendar, or Gmail – you’re stuck with web apps for those still.

In addition to the previous 21 regions that it was already in beta including the United States, you can now check this update out if you live in Australia, Canada, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Cook Islands, Heard and McDonald Islands, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, and Tokelau.

If you’re like me, then you’ll also need to enable virtualization on your BIOS, but I’m too lazy for that to try something that’s not even going to have Google apps or Play Services. Still, if you’re interested, you now have the power to tinker a bit and see what’s on offer.