Astoria was always a gamble because Google is in a rather advantageous position to change Android and Google Play Services whenever they want. Amazon, with thei

Astoria was always a gamble because Google is in a rather advantageous position to change Android and Google Play Services whenever they want. Amazon, with their FireOS Android flavor, decided not to provide a shim for Google Play Services and instead asks developers to recompile for their specific APIs [1]. [1] https://developer.amazon.com/public/support/submitting-your-app/tech-docs/updating-your-android-app-for-fire-tablets https://developer.amazon.com/public/support/submitting-your-... Furthermore, running unmodified Android apps on Windows Phone would have conceded the developer share further. Sure, it would've gotten holdout apps on WP at the very least, but the experience would have been subpar, and WP owners would have been reminded daily with bad UX, and the whole thing would be a tacit endorsement that their platform is second-rate, practically running an emulator of someone else's platform. Instead, Microsoft decided to bite the bullet, scrap Astoria, roll out (the same) Windows 10 to as many desktops as they can and see if that changes the app equation. So far, it hasn't yet, but after years of screwups and scrapping platforms they finally have a strategy, and some leverage. Google knows this all too well, which is why they finally brought Android apps to Chromebooks. If Google brings Android apps onto Chrome on Windows 10 or macOS, it's over, everyone else has lost.