Discontinuation of Amazon Appstore on Windows 11

[jhowell]

I received an email from Amazon today:

Dear Customer,

We are writing to inform you about changes to the availability of Amazon Appstore on Windows 11.

Starting March 6, 2024, Amazon Appstore will no longer be available for download from the Microsoft Store on Windows 11 devices. After March 5, 2025, Amazon Appstore on Windows 11 and any apps downloaded from it will not be supported. For additional details and insights into this transition, please read our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section: www.amazon.com/appstoreonwindowsFAQ

Despite this change, we want to assure you that Amazon Appstore will continue to be available and supported on Fire TV, Fire Tablet and Android devices. We appreciate your understanding and continued support as we work to enhance and evolve the Amazon Appstore experience on those devices.

If you have further questions, please contact Amazon Customer Service.

Amazon Appstore

From the FAQ referenced in that email:

Why is Amazon Appstore leaving Windows 11?
Microsoft will end support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) on March 5, 2025. WSA is essential for users to run Android apps on Windows 11, and its discontinuation means the Amazon Appstore will no longer be supported on Windows devices.

I am sorry to hear this. I use WSA on my Windows 11 PC to provide access to the Kindle for Android app. I prefer that app because it is more full featured than the Kindle for PC app that runs natively under Windows. I assume that I still will be able to run it under a different Android emulator. It just won't be as convenient.

I do wonder why Microsoft is dropping Android support in Windows. Is is not popular enough? Did they have a falling out with Amazon?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I do wonder why Microsoft is dropping Android support in Windows. Is is not popular enough? Did they have a falling out with Amazon?

I would think a fallout with google.

[DNSB]

I suspect the lack of apps in the Amazon Appstore was likely more an issue. Too many apps I looked at in the Google Playstore were not available in the Amazon Appstore and trying to install some of them using apk packages in most cases did not give a good result.

[DiapDealer]

That's the same for the Amazon Appstore vs the Google Play Store on any platform, though. Not just on Windows. Not as many apps, and the ones that are there tend to run behind the versions of the same apps on Google.

I'm betting on WSA just not being popular enough for Microsoft to continue developing/supporting.

[j.p.s]

I've always thought the entire "app store" concept a royal PITA and resent that it is worming its way into linux.

[jhowell]

For a short while there was a parity between Windows and Mac in terms of Kindle app support. The latest Kindle for iOS now runs on newer Macs and the latest Kindle for Android runs on Windows 11. That seemed to be the direction for the future.

The old Kindle for Mac app (now called Kindle Classic) is deprecated and will supposedly receive no further updates. I felt that the Kindle for PC app was on track to meet the same fate once support for Windows 10 ended. But now this change breathes new life into the old PC app.

I wonder how long Amazon has been anticipating the demise of WSA. There have been several updates to Kindle for PC in the past half year and I thought that was odd given that it has received very little attention for years. Now it makes more sense.

[tomsem]

I only installed WSA to run the Kindle app, mostly out of curiosity. I have never actually done any reading with it. Still I'm surprised Microsoft is pulling the plug on it.

There is a project called Androidx86, which publishes VMs for VirtualBox. I used something similar maybe 8 years ago; it included Google Play and seemed to mostly work (I think I ran on Ubuntu). I think I'll try it out on my Windows 11 system when I get a chance.

[jhowell]

One thing I like about WSA is that it is mostly invisible. It starts automatically when you launch the Kindle for Android app and shuts itself down if no Android aps have been run for awhile. There is no need to launch the emulator, wait for it to start up, and then launch the Kindle app within it.

Also the Kindle for Android app looks like a native Windows app when running. There is no extra chrome related to the emulator, just a normal looking window. And you can resize the window as needed and the app will adjust.

I wonder whether other Android emulators can duplicate that.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jhowell

One thing I like about WSA is that it is mostly invisible. It starts automatically when you launch the Kindle for Android app and shuts itself down if no Android aps have been run for awhile. There is no need to launch the emulator, wait for it to start up, and then launch the Kindle app within it.

Also the Kindle for Android app looks like a native Windows app when running. There is no extra chrome related to the emulator, just a normal looking window. And you can resize the window as needed and the app will adjust.

I wonder whether other Android emulators can duplicate that.

Using WSA, how would you get the key from Kindle for Android app?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Using WSA, how would you get the key from Kindle for Android app?

I have read that there are versions of WSA available that have been hacked to provide root access. That might provide a channel for obtaining the key information for the Kindle app. It is not something I need and so I have not researched it in detail.

Anyway, with WSA going away a DRM solution for it is not going to be an issue.

[tomsem]

What is not clear to me is whether it will all stop working after March 5 2025.

Surely Microsoft is not going to remove WSA and/or Amazon App Store with some update? Why would Amazon turn off the app or App Store for anyone who has it installed?

It's probably possible for them to build a wrapper for the Kindle app to do whatever WSA did, to at least be able to continue developing Windows app from the Kindle for Android code base.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Surely Microsoft is not going to remove WSA and/or Amazon App Store with some update?

I assume that Microsoft will treat it the same as other unsupported software. It may continue to function but the version of Android included will become increasingly out of date and will not receive any further updates, even for security issues. If you need to reinstall Windows for some reason WSA won't be available to reinstall.

Originally Posted by tomsem

Why would Amazon turn off the app or App Store for anyone who has it installed?

Amazon has costs in maintaining the server backend to the Appstore in Windows 11. It is likely they will turn that off in 2025 making the Appstore app useless.

Originally Posted by tomsem

It's probably possible for them to build a wrapper for the Kindle app to do whatever WSA did, to at least be able to continue developing Windows app from the Kindle for Android code base.

It was no extra effort for Amazon to support Kindle for Android in WSA. I strongly doubt that there are enough Kindle users under Windows to be worth the effort of developing their own WSA equivalent.

The old Kindle for PC app has seen more updates recently than in many prior years. I suspect that is a sign that they plan to continue with that as their supported Windows app.

[tomsem]

I had not looked at the Windows-native Kindle app for quite awhile, so I went ahead and installed it.

Overall, despite the improvements since I last looked at it, I would still greatly prefer to run the Android app using WSA, though there are issues with both.

The Windows app looks like crap unless you run it full screen, when finally you do not have to see the application menus and reading options (especially since it doesn't support Dark mode when set system wide, or have an app preference for it). It's nice that you can easily adjust the page width by dragging the edge of the reading area (I generally prefer 1 page display), wish you could do that with the iPad/macOS/Android app when you are running it on larger displays. But then to make any other adjustments, you have to exit full screen mode. Awkward it is.

The Android app is crap in full screen mode. You pretty much have to use 2 column, and then the margin adjustments are too limited to make that truly comfortable on a large monitor. It's best when not in full screen, and then you have ability to adjust both the app window shape and the margins within it.

The Windows app is missing expected Library Filters found on all the other platforms, no Immersion reading, no X-Ray, no Page Flip, no Word Runner (did you know Word Runner does not work with personal documents? I didn't!).

Windows app does not let you view Scribe Notebooks or for that matter next to nothing that is in the MORE section of the Android app (too much to list). No access to Kindle Vella (does anybody use that?).

The Android app doesn't have the more accessible (side by side) Show Notebook found in Windows app and iPad/macOS app.

Neither app seems to work with Narrator (there's some message that WSA needs 'additional software'). What's the current state of Accessibility? does the Windows app work with some 3rd party screen reader? it used to.

At least on my Windows system, the Android app seems to launch quicker. And you can give it access to the local file system (like the Windows app).

In conclusion I hope they find some way to run the Android app on Windows without WSA (but it needs to handle full screen mode better) and without Amazon App Store (should install like a native app and be available in Microsoft Store again). I think a Windows native app will always lag behind the other platforms, and be deficient enough that few people will want to use it, just as it has always been. The existing Android app is a lot more compelling right now.

They also need to support two page display of Print Replica (it is silly not to be able to do this on large displays), but that's not specific to Windows.

[jhowell]

This may have been obvious to others but it just occurred to me that the closing of the Amazon Appstore in Windows 11 coincides with the start of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in Europe. Perhaps Microsoft and Amazon are doing this to avoid potential problems with that regulation.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by jhowell

This may have been obvious to others but it just occurred to me that the closing of the Amazon Appstore in Windows 11 coincides with the start of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in Europe. Perhaps Microsoft and Amazon are doing this to avoid potential problems with that regulation.

That might also explain why they aren't being more forthcoming about their reasons.