


We’ve seen the spotty performance and appearance of Android apps running in Chrome OS (both owned by Google), so I’m not expecting perfection in this collaboration between Amazon and Microsoft. What remains to be seen is how well Android apps will run on the desktop. For now, the capability is in Preview and it offers a limited selection, favoring kids' games. Yes, you can run Android apps on your PC-but only through the Amazon AppStore or by sideloading them. Dark mode, too, looks more consistent, and these materials change to reflect that mode. A couple of new materials join the translucent one called Acrylic: the opaque Mica, which is slightly tinted based on the background color and Smoke, which darkens other areas to make you focus on an important input region. More subtle are the transparency, animations, and clean icon design that represent an evolution of the Fluent Design System (Opens in a new window), which, though promised, never fully took over in Windows 10. The centered look may win me over, however, since it doesn't require you to move the mouse cursor across a full screen to launch an app from the Start Menu. In Windows 10 you get wide taskbar buttons for running apps that contrast with narrow icons for pinned apps. I’m still not a fan of the always-narrow Taskbar buttons. Windows get tightly rounded corners, similar to macOS. The Taskbar icons are now centered and smaller like in Chrome OS, but the Start button is still to the left of the other app icons.
