About a year ago, Google announced that it would be requiring developers to use its new App Bundles format on the Play Store. We already wrote an article about this new format and why this requirement is worrying some, but here's a quick recap.

App Bundles are a new way to distribute apps. By splitting up resources and other files, they allow for serving smaller APKs to users, decreasing download size and storage space. But because of how they work, there have been some concerns raised by developers and security researchers. While Google has addressed a lot of those concerns, many people are still worried.

One of the major concerns we've heard is about distribution on alternate app stores. Most app stores don't support the new format, making it tricky for developers to publish on both Google Play and elsewhere. Of course, App Bundles aren't a proprietary format. As long as they have the resources, any store can support them. And that's what Amazon is working on.

In a blog post today, Amazon announced its plans to support App Bundles on the Amazon Appstore. While there isn't currently a date on when support will be available, Amazon says it will provide updates throughout the process.

Amazon's implementation also seems to address some of the concerns people had with Google's approach. According to the FAQ, App Bundles will not be required by Amazon. Developers can continue to use APKs, only switching to App Bundles if they want to. Amazon is also not planning to require developers' private keys for signing bundles. The FAQ seems to even imply that they can be signed locally to maintain signature compatibility.

While the announcement doesn't have much detail, it's certainly encouraging to see at least one other app store add support for App Bundles. If everything goes to plan, the process might even be more secure than Google's. It's nice to see Amazon beef up its Appstore ahead of the launch of Android app support on Windows 11.