The name Lepton appeared on Steam and SteamDB just a few weeks after Valve unveiled the Steam Frame headset, which will be able to run Android apps.
In our new interview with Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais, he mentioned the Frame uses “a similar compatibility layer as Proton, just targeted at Android.”
[Image: https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/steam-lepton-header.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]
That would be cool to be able to run some apps in a sandbox on a PC just because it would be far easier to circumvent the increasingly intrusive data collection.
Unfortunately the trend is that those apps usually require play integrity api https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide#apps-banning-grapheneos which requires that the app is running on a verified android(stock) device and custom ROMs can’t run it same for waydroid.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/android-now-allows-apps-to-block-sideloading-and-push-a-google-play-version/
and its just starting, its about to get even worse https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-android-security.html?m=1
It’s ridiculous, I reluctantly have a GrapheneOS phone and my bank was absolutely fine with it, but McDonalds refuses to sell me a cheeseburger.
I treat it mostly the same I treat games on linux, if your game doesn’t run, because of spyware-like DRM, looking at you EA, then I guess it’s not for me. Play integrity api is the same in that regard.
Had to switch my mom to a PWA for one of her apps though.