Basically, you can run an Android app on your phone and see it on your computer desktop, interacting with it using your mouse, keyboard, and even a touch screen if you have one. But the hard work is done on your phone.
Windows 11 and Windows 10 have built-in support for this. It’s available in the Phone Link app — assuming you have a compatible phone. It’s one of the many useful features included in Phone Link. You must use a phone that comes with “Connect to Windows (pre-installed)”. Microsoft provides a list of phones that come with this software, and it includes various Samsung Galaxy phones as well as phones from OnePlus, HONOR, Asus ROG and others.
However, it seems not turn on Pixel phones — I’m using a Google Pixel phone, so I don’t have access to this feature. (If there’s one theme here, it’s that Google and Microsoft don’t seem to be cooperating very much!)
If your phone supports this feature, all you need to do is launch the Phone Link app — the first time you launch it, it will guide you through the setup process — and look for Apps in the Phone Link window. You can even pin an Android app to the taskbar or Start menu for easy access.
If you have a phone without this software installed, you don’t have the same level of refinement in the available options. There are tools like AirDroid (screen mirroring) and Vysor to run Android apps on your PC and view them on your desktop, but I’m not sure there’s much demand for them.
Chromebooks still have support for Android apps
With Microsoft’s support for this feature, one thing is clear — if you want an operating system with first-rate integrated support for Android apps, ChromeOS might be your best bet. Chromebooks have built-in support for Android apps.
But Windows is still powerful and flexible, and even with Microsoft abandoning the Windows subsystem for Android, there’s still a lot you can do with third-party software.
More importantly, Android apps are much more necessary on Chromebooks because ChromeOS isn’t compatible with as many apps. Between powerful native apps and high-quality web apps, Android apps just aren’t that important on Windows. It might have been different if Windows had succeeded on touch-first tablets. But that first-touch tablet dream is in the rearview mirror.
Microsoft and the PC industry are now all about computers with artificial intelligence.
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