Android apps on Windows 11 will be available for public preview in February

Microsoft has announced that it will add a public preview of its Android apps for Windows 11 in February.

Microsoft has announced that it has plans to launch a public preview of its Android apps for Windows 11, which will take place sometime in February. Windows chief Panos Panay confirmed this in a blog post while talking about the early adoption rate of Windows 11.

The company released its latest operating system back in October 2021 with a redesigned interface. One of the significant features of Windows 11 is the ability to natively run Android apps on a PC or laptop. However, the feature wasn’t made available to users during the release.

Microsoft offered this functionality at a later stage to those who signed up for Windows 11’s Insider Program, but with only a bunch of apps. This will change soon as the company has noted in the blog post that the next update will add Android app support for “Public Preview.”

This basically suggests that all those who are using Windows 11 will be able to access Android apps through the PC-based Amazon Appstore. One might not need to sign up for Windows Insider. However, Microsoft describes this as a “public preview,” which denotes that the feature might still remain in the beta stage. So, one will likely witness bugs and limited features.

As of now, it is unknown whether Microsoft will offer users a larger library of apps with next month’s public preview. The Windows 11’s Insider Program offered around 50 apps. Apart from this feature, the company has revealed that the upcoming update will bring taskbar improvements too, which will include a mute and unmute feature. It is also expected to bring back drag and drop functionality for taskbar.

One will be able to add a weather widget on the taskbar. Microsoft will introduce two new redesigned apps, Notepad and Media Player. These will offer dark modes and a design that goes well with Windows 11.

Apart from this, Panay also revealed that the company witnessed strong demand and preference for Windows 11 as people accepted the free upgrade offer to Windows 11 at twice the rate as for the older version. Currently, Windows is running on 1.4 billion devices each month, and the PC market also saw strong growth during the pandemic.