While these all sound like significant enhancements, you may want to postpone using the function for the time being. For starters, it’s currently being rolled out to the Dev channel, the most advanced of the Windows Insider rings. (This means you’re more likely to encounter issues and crashes when you’re not running Android apps.) Microsoft warns that upgrading to Android 12.1 “may cause some apps to fail to launch.” Perhaps this isn’t surprising given how difficult the Android 12 phone rollout has been. According to the corporation, it is working with partners “to fix these concerns as soon as feasible,” so perhaps it will be resolved before it reaches consumers.
Even if the upgrade isn’t quite finished, it’s encouraging to see Microsoft putting some effort into the Android apps on Windows feature. It could have easily promoted it as something amazing coming with Windows 11, released it, and declared the project to be nearly complete. The fact that we’re seeing significant updates to it, on the other hand, suggests that Microsoft is committed to the feature for the time being. If it truly wants to provide a first-class experience, it will need to devise a lot easier way to download programs from the Google Play Store rather than the significantly more limited collection of the Amazon Appstore.
