The desktops and laptops are going app crazy and it is not about you. It is all about the money. You might have been following the market and the crazy amount of money that is being made on the Apple AppStore supporting the iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and macOS eco-systems and similarly to a limited extent the Google Play Store supporting the Android ecosystem. It has always been about the money and I am guessing that Microsoft felt it got left out.

ChromeOS-based computers started such integrations first of the bat. They brought in Android app integration a few years ago and have been honing it. I had a couple of old Chrome Desktops providing browser ability to our large screen TVs, but they did not make the upgrade cut. So, I have not experienced this integration in action. And I decided not to invest further in the Chromebook range, yet and for now.

Then came the recent switch by Apple from Intel to their own ARM-based M1 chips for the Mac computers starting with the Macbook Air, MacBook Pro 13-inch, the Mac Mini, and later on the iMac range. Now that they natively share the chip platform with their iPhone and iPad brethren, MacOS added the capability to run iPhone and iPad apps on notebooks and desktops. All the bunch of Intel-based Mac computers at home did not make the cut and the ability to run apps will come only when the next cycle of upgrades or replacements happens to these machines.

Now it’s Microsoft’s turn. They announced Windows 11, brought back a Microsoft Apps store, and in partnership with Intel’s Bridge technology (a post-run translation software) that allows the ability to download Android apps from Amazon’s Appstore to run apps on the PC. And with a huge multi-billion PC market both in the home and enterprise segments, the addition of apps would be an additional revenue source for the Microsoft store, or so they hope. At least at home, we don’t use Microsoft products except for a work-provided machine that my wife uses. And my best guess is that large enterprises are going to spend another cycle of money to block or manage the usage of these apps and that is going to another layer of security to now worry about.

One most important thing to follow is how regulation catches up with Apple and Google with the ongoing US legislative investigation of their practices. That is going to be a key determinant of the direction these app store platforms going to take from here.

And in the meanwhile for the Microsoft users, once they get on to the Windows 11 platform (caution: not all PCs are upgradeable), you could certainly use TikTok, lest they don’t miss out.

Source:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-tech-unleashes-windows-experience.html#gs.4t5dz6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome_OS

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57597349

https://www.1littleanthro.com/p/my-take-on-apple-wwdc21

https://www.1littleanthro.com/p/forced-unplanned-obsolescence