I am deeply sorry if this topic is discussed countless times a day or week, however, I am unable to find any official, up-to-date info on this matter. So, as the title suggests, I am wondering if Infinite Flight will be available to play on the new Windows 11 OS or not? Additionally, is there news regarding Infinite Flight on Windows 10…?
I’ve seen this being asked over and over again, but always getting the answer “no, this is not planned due to x reason”. I can’t really understand why. There’s so many users wanting to play this on PC / Win 10, even if there’s other high-end simulators available. Not everyone likes the extreme simulation aspects of, for example, the Microsoft Flight Simulator. I love Infinite Flight due it’s simplicity whilst keeping the simulation aspect of physics and other procedures. But I hate that it’s only available on mobile / Mac. Playing games on mobile in general sucks, even more so if it’s such a resource-heavy game.
Having Infinite Flight on Windows 10 would get so many new players and fans, but it seems this will never happen, or at least not until Windows 11 is fully implemented as OS. I’m more than sure that all those interested would even pay more for having it on Windows 10. I’d love to hear some news regarding this and a possibly more detailed answer. If it’s only a “this is not planned in the near / far future”, then that’s fine too, but we’ve heard this more than enough now in my personal opinion.
Windows 11 is a paint job, whose main purpose seems to be to push the sale of new CPUs. The much vaunted ability to run Android is nothing special. You’ve been able to run Android apps on a PC for a long time, I was doing it years ago.
Whether it will run well enough to run something like IF is debatable. The graphics may not be up to it with an emulation layer in, and IF may not want to permit it because of security issues.
To add a level of clarity onto an explanation, let me start by pointing out that Windows 11 will run android apps in the same way that Windows does currently: Emulation.
Android apps are designed to run on ARM based platforms, and at this time, with the exception of a very small number of units, Windows 11 will run on x86 PCs. Meaning that running an Android app inside of the OS will simply emulate an ARM based environment, in the same way that Android Studio and Bluestacks do currently.
To add another layer onto this, the apps allowed to run on W11 will be exclusively from the Amazon App store, and Infinite Flight was removed from this store several years ago. Considering there isn’t a single Amazon device that actually supports Global IF, the chances of it being reinstated are slim to none. And adding onto this again, the requirements for Android apps are changing to require .aab, or Android App Bundles which would likely invalidate their ability to run on W11
There are rumours that you will be able to sideload an APK, but considering Infinite Flight is a paid application, this would be illegal and also violate the ToS.
Ignoring the technical aspects and limitations, it also likely isn’t a viable option to be added to PC. IF has essentially cornered and topped the mobile flight simulation area, but on PC the competition is a little more fierce. I suspect it wouldn’t be a very good business model.