[Akhilesh Bhambhani]

I was watching this video on channel 9 and Also read an article on WMPU
See the video embedded above , and note at the 3 minute mark the presenter says many Android apps will work with little to no modification via Microsoft’s interop layer, which will automatically translate Android calls to Windows kernel calls, and note at minute 17 how developers upload APKs, not APX files, to the Windows Store.
So can any developer explain it to us? Will apks actually run on our device? Or the writer wrong?
And what does Interop layer mean? Can anyone explain it in layman's term.

[Asskickulater]

its a converter, you piut the app into the program and it converts the android app to a wp app, all devs need to do is change out google services for microsoft services. (very very vague explanation)

WP wont be running android apps though

[Ma Rio]

This is how things are going. You take the code of your Android / iOS app. You make changes (if needed). Then you recompile it, and from there on it's actually a full Windows app. And then you submit it to the Windows Store.
So it's not Android apps running on your device, it's not Android virtualisation, it's not anything else. It's just using the code from Android / iOS apps to make a Windows app.

[Spectrum90]

This is how things are going. You take the code of your Android / iOS app. You make changes (if needed). Then you recompile it, and from there on it's actually a full Windows app. And then you submit it to the Windows Store.
So it's not Android apps running on your device, it's not Android virtualisation, it's not anything else. It's just using the code from Android / iOS apps to make a Windows app.

Microsoft ported a big part of Android to Windows, Android apps use those components to run. So, It's better described as Android apps running on Windows, not as Windows apps.

As a consequence, Google might consider Windows Phone a non-compatible version of Android and force OEMs to stop manufacturing Windows devices.

Google:
"Compatibility is at the heart of the Android ecosystem and ensures a consistent experience for developers, manufacturers and consumers.
Non-compatible versions of Android, like Aliyun, weaken the ecosystem. All members of the Open Handset Alliance have committed to building one Android platform and to not ship non-compatible Android devices.
This does not however, keep OHA members from participating in competing ecosystems."

http://marketingland.com/google-acer...d-aliyun-21631

[Akhilesh Bhambhani]

This is how things are going. You take the code of your Android / iOS app. You make changes (if needed). Then you recompile it, and from there on it's actually a full Windows app. And then you submit it to the Windows Store.
So it's not Android apps running on your device, it's not Android virtualisation, it's not anything else. It's just using the code from Android / iOS apps to make a Windows app.

Thanks a lot man. Surur is wrong a lot of times, so thanks for the info. :)

[seb_r]

This is how things are going. You take the code of your Android / iOS app. You make changes (if needed). Then you recompile it, and from there on it's actually a full Windows app. And then you submit it to the Windows Store.
So it's not Android apps running on your device, it's not Android virtualisation, it's not anything else. It's just using the code from Android / iOS apps to make a Windows app.

Actually MS succeed very well to make the average user believe: Oh so easy to port Android apps. And it must be the bad lazy developers if they still not wanna embrace this awesome feature.
In factit is not as easy as uploading your apk file to a website or recompile it without any changes cos a magic library will translate all the android stuff. The code will always need some modifications. Also, in real life, you won't get away as easy as shown in the video - surprisingly for this (simple app) there was always a MS service handy to replace the google one. Keep in mind that the app is always limited by the underlying OS and it's limitations (missing API's, no real "multitasking", awkward push notifaction service etc.). This leads to what we can see nowadays already in the store: apps that lack a lot of features compared to their android counterpart. Sometimes even so many features that cannot be ported that developers decide to not release a WP version of their app or still release it for a certain amount of money useres won't be willing to pay cos of the reduced functionality. Also daily business we can experience already in the store.