Microsoft to pull the plug on Amazon's Android app store for Windows 11
How many of you have ever installed and run Android apps from Amazon's app store on Windows 11? Raise your hands. OK, that's what I thought.
Well, I hate to break it to the three of you who raised your hands, but you only have one year left to enjoy Amazon's app store. That's right: Microsoft has announced that it's killing off support for the retail giant's Android app store on March 5, 2025. When that fateful day arrives, you'll no longer be able to access the app store to download new apps or use any Android apps you've already installed.
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In an FAQ page on its website, Amazon also shared the news that Microsoft will end support for the Windows Subsystem for Android on March 5, 2025. WSA is needed to run Android apps in Windows 11, which means the app store will no longer work.
Any apps you've already installed this way will keep working until the March 5 deadline. However, between now and then, some apps may not fully function, Amazon revealed. If you have installed apps from the store but lost track of them, you can find them by searching by name or by opening the Amazon Appstore app and going to the My Apps section.
If you've already uninstalled the Amazon Appstore or never bothered to install it in the first place, you can download it for now from the Microsoft Store. You can also reinstall any apps you may have downloaded but since removed by going to the My Apps section and selecting the ones you want to use again.
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And for those of you who like the idea of grabbing Android apps from Amazon, you'll still be able to access and use Amazon's app store on a Fire TV, a Fire tablet, and Android devices.
In their respective announcements, neither Amazon nor Microsoft shared the reasons why the Android subsystem and Amazon Appstore are going away. But I'll hazard a guess: nobody used them. Microsoft has a habit of deprecating and eliminating features in Windows that nobody uses.
The Amazon Appstore came to life on Windows in early 2022 as Microsoft touted the integration as one reason to upgrade to Windows 11. From the get-go, however, the app store was limited: it only offered Android apps from Amazon, not from Google.
I tried Amazon's app store in Windows 11 a few times, partly out of curiosity but mostly because I was writing stories about it. And the experience left me less than thrilled.
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Overall, downloading and using the app store felt slow and clumsy. The selection of apps was limited. Many of the apps were ones you could use more easily as a Windows application or a website. And even the games that I thought might play better on a larger screen vs. a small Android device proved less than satisfying.
There are other ways to run Android apps in Windows, such as Microsoft's Phone Link and emulators like BlueStacks and Android-x86. I've tried all of these, but the experience never quite does the trick. If you want to run regular Android apps, I'd stay stick with your mobile device. And if you want to run Android games or other apps that could benefit from a bigger screen, you can always pipe them to your TV.