What you need to know
- Microsoft recently launched support for the Amazon Appstore on Windows 11 in preview.
- The feature is exclusive to the United States and has a set of minimum requirements that excludes some PCs.
- Less than five percent of polled Windows Central readers frequently use the Amazon Appstore on Windows 11.
Windows 11 now supports Android apps through the Amazon Appstore. The feature is in preview and now includes over 1,000 apps, but it doesn't appear to be getting much use from the readers of Windows Central. In our weekend poll, less than five percent of polled participants said they frequently use the Amazon Appstore on Windows 11.
A variety of factors contributed to our readers not using the Amazon Appstore. Over 46% of voters can't use it at all because they are outside of the United States. Another 8.33% are excluded from the functionality because their PCs don't meet the minimum requirements.
Even those that can use the Amazon Appstore don't seem anxious to give it a try. Over 25% of voters said they don't use it at all and over 14% said they use the Amazon Appstore infrequently. Only 4.15% of participants said they frequently used apps from the Amazon Appstore.
The lack of interest is in part due to what's available through the Amazon Appstore. "There is nothing but games in it right now. For me no apps worth trying," said SDKevind in the comments section of our poll.
"I installed it and looked at the apps but there is nothing I will use currently on the Amazon Android App store," commented Johnny4.
Others opted to use alternatives to the Amazon Appstore, such as Bluestacks or sideloading applications. "I installed the Google Play Store and Google services and haven't opened the Amazon Appstore since," said Hanley Gibbons. "I found the Amazon Appstore to be utterly useless since it seemed like Kindle was the only app, and all the games are very very old and mostly targeted at kids."
Support for the Amazon Appstore on Windows 11 is still in its preview phase, so things could change. There's also a chance that the Amazon Appstore will only be one piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting Android apps on Windows PCs. Microsoft's Your Phone app allows people to sync apps from supported Android phones to Windows 11. It's also possible to sideload Android apps onto a PC.
