It did, but only for a small portion of applications. Others would run very poorly, if at all, depending on the degree in which the application hooked into google services//android api. The original project was more analogous to WINE for *nix systems, a compatibility layer; there where many edge cases that simply didn't work and supporting new versions of Android would require almost completely rewriting it (pre project treble).
The VM route is simply more workable and sustainable. While WINE has achieved some great success, it's still a spectrum. Some software simply doesn't work, some mostly works, some works but performance is abysmal, and some work flawlessly - depending on how deeply they integrate with windows and what APIs they utilize.
The VM route is simply more workable and sustainable. While WINE has achieved some great success, it's still a spectrum. Some software simply doesn't work, some mostly works, some works but performance is abysmal, and some work flawlessly - depending on how deeply they integrate with windows and what APIs they utilize.