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Bye-bye .apk: the premature end for Android apps on Windows 11?

Dominik Bärlocher
1.7.2021
Translation: Eva Francis

Google is making changes to its Play Store in August. Android App Bundles will replace .apk files. Why? Critics are sure it’s because Google doesn’t want Amazon/Microsoft to distribute their apps on Windows 11.

Windows 11 installs apps in the form of .apk files from the Google Play Store via Amazon Play Store. Other app stores, APKPure, for instance, use the same way to offer Android apps outside the Play Store. Who benefits from this? The community does, but Google doesn’t. That's why

Google is changing its Play Store. Instead of .apk files, so-called Android App Bundles (file extension .aab) will soon be distributed on the Play Store, as Google has announced.

Why .aab is better, according to Google

As of August, apps can only be downloaded from the official Play Store as Android App Bundles. The file extension is .aab and no longer .apk. To make sure the anger and confusion of developers aren’t quite so great, Google also listed the advantages of .aab files.

Existing APK won’t disappear from the Play Store. They’ll still be available. But if a new version or a new app is uploaded, it needs be uploaded as .aab.

Not an impossibility but an obstacle

Critics on the Internet are sure that the change from .apk to .aab is part of a plan. Google doesn’t want other large corporations to access the resources on the Play Store. Proof of this, as they say, is the fact that the change was implemented just days after Microsoft announced that Android apps can be installed on Windows 11 via Amazon App Store.

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Dominik Bärlocher
Senior Editor
dominik.baerlocher@digitecgalaxus.ch

Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.

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