Microsoft Is Killing Windows 11 Android Apps

Microsoft rolled out early support for running Android apps on Windows 11 before the OS was even widely released, and it updated the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) regularly over the past couple of years. That's all over now, though. Microsoft has announced its plans to kill Android apps on Windows 11. You can still use WSA for now, but the service will shutter on March 5, 2025.

Starting today, you can no longer search for the Amazon Appstore client or Android apps inside the Windows Store. If you already have the Android system installed, you can continue installing and using apps. You can even keep using them past the end of life next year, but you won't get any support. The apps themselves will fall into disrepair, as there will be no further updates after WSA is deprecated. Upon Microsoft's announcement of the death of WSA yesterday, Amazon also closed the door on new app submissions.

Ever since it gave up on making a Windows-powered smartphone, Microsoft has been leaning into Android. The Phone Link app lets you access files, take calls, and even run apps on your PC. These apps are just mirrored from the phone, though. Running Android apps natively on Windows was supposed to be a core feature of the OS and possibly a way to counter Apple's success with iOS apps on its ARM-based Macs. Microsoft partnered with Amazon to bring its app store to Windows, and that might be the problem.

Credit: Microsoft / Amazon

Running mobile apps on a computer is theoretically very useful—some services and data are limited to mobile apps, and some simply work better as an app. You can't plug in any old app store and call it a day, though. The Amazon Appstore debuted more than a decade ago as an alternative to the Play Store (née Android Market). However, most Android apps people want to use are the core Google apps and other big names that rely on Google services. That means they only work properly on Google-certified Android devices. Amazon failed to attract many developers, leaving it with a selection far short of Google's ecosystem.

Technically, the Windows Subsystem for Android works with any Android application package, if you're willing to fiddle with command lines. So, you can continue manually installing apps for as long as WSA is online. Microsoft's brief announcement doesn't go into detail about the fate of WSA itself. Will the Amazon Appstore just go away, or will Microsoft rip the subsystem out of your PC? If Microsoft does not see fit to wipe this failure from existence, it's possible another group could continue Android subsystem development by ditching Amazon and using open source components. But for the time being, that's just wishful thinking.