Google has long talked a big game about open software and platforms, but its Amazon that’s opening up with Android apps on Windows 11.
It’s taken the combined forces of Amazon and Microsoft to bring the core of the Android experience — the all-important apps — to millions more users with the introduction of native Android app support on Windows 11. The solution is a potential game-changer for the way users will interact with their favorite apps, smartphones, and PCs, but it’s perplexing that the initiative hasn’t been driven by Google but by one of its biggest rivals. Google has always talked strongly about the merits of open-source software at the heart of Android and the benefits of open platforms to drive innovation and bring technology to the masses. To quote Pichai once more, “when you run a platform on scale, you have to make sure it’s truly open. That way, not only do you do well, so do others.” That’s certainly true. Google’s smartphone, smart home, and TV products wouldn’t be the successful, cross-hardware ecosystems they are today without expansive partnerships and mutually beneficial collaboration. The recent Google and Samsung partnership for Wear OS 3.0 is just such an example. Considering Google has shown time and time again that it can’t be trusted to properly integrate its behemoth service portfolio across even its own hardware, it’s good that the search giant is ostensibly so open to playing nice with others. However, the company’s actions over the past decade have often failed to live up to this ethos. On the one hand, Google preaches openness and competition yet retains an iron grip on its software with the other.
