The main draw card of Windows 11 for many, ourselves included, was the ability to run Android apps natively on the operating system.

However, since launching last year, this functionality has been slow to make it to the final build of the operating system. Sadly, there was no good news on this front during Microsoft’s Build 2022 event, currently underway this week.

Buried in a blog about how Windows is evolving for developers, Microsoft revealed that only five more countries will receive access to the Amazon Appstore preview.

“The Amazon Appstore preview on Windows 11 is currently available in the US, and it will be expanding to five additional countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, by the end of this year,” writes Microsoft.

While this is disappointing, it’s also understandable. While Microsoft hasn’t said that Android apps would work perfectly, we are of the opinion that users will expect those apps to work perfectly. Easing out the release of this feature allows Microsoft to address bugs easily without impacting a large swathe of users.

Just this week Microsoft updated its Windows Subsystem for Android to Android 12.1 and released a number of improvements to how the mobile operating systems integrates with Windows as ZDNet reports.

In better news, the waitlist for Win32 applications on the Microsoft Store has been removed essentially opening up the marketplace to all app developers. In addition, Microsoft is piloting developer tools that will make it easier to run advertising campaigns on the Microsoft Store.

You can read all about the changes Microsoft is making to make development easier for Windows here.

We would have liked to have Android apps running on Windows 11 by now but at least Microsoft is working hard to improve the operating system.