Android Apps Now Unofficially Able To Run On Any Major Desktop OS 101
An anonymous reader writes A developer who goes by the handle Vladikoff has tweaked Google's App Runtime for Chrome (ARC) to allow any Android app to run on any major desktop operating system, not just the handful announced last week which were also limited to Chrome OS. His tweaked version of ARC is re-packaged as ARChon. The install isn't very straightforward, and you have to be in developer mode on Chrome. But there's a support forum on reddit. The extension will work on any OS running the desktop version of Chrome 37 and up as long as the user also installs chromeos-apk, which converts raw Android app packages (APKs) to a Chrome extension. Ars Technica reports that apps run this way are buggy, fast, and crash often but expresses optimism for when Google officially "opens the floodgates on the Play Store, putting 1.3 million Android apps onto nearly every platform."
Re: (Score:1)
Why are you being modded down for commenting on yet ANOTHER reddit commercial? Don't they know that Slashdot is being absorbed by them?
Re: Please make this thing useful for development (Score:3, Insightful)
Just run Android for x86 if you don't want the overhead of emulating ARM...
Re: (Score:2)
Or if you're okay with it being x86 Android, just install it in VirtualBox or VMWare.
Re: Please make this thing useful for development (Score:4, Insightful)
android-x86 is a bit of a dog's breakfast. They only kick out a release image every now and again, everything never works, lots of crashes. The latest 4.4 image is way less stable than the last 4.0 image they put out, and they stopped building nightlies and so did everyone else. It's really quite useless and always has been, because they never actually finish a release. Google kicks out a new version, they say "Ooh, shiny!" and they move on before they actually get the system working reliably or properly. Then you get to deal with all the apps that won't work right on x86 on top of that. It makes far more sense at this point to go ahead and run the emulator.
Re: (Score:2)
I could not DISagree with you more. If you have supported hardware (Lenovo x230t here)
My hardware worked okay with their 4.3 release (ASUS EEE 701 4G here) but went into bootloop with 4.4-rc1. The 4.3 release was shit, mind you, but it did boot. You just had to do shit like hit the power button to wake up the lock screen. 4.0.something was the last Android-x86 release I tried which didn't asplode constantly once I got it working.
I'll keep trying every new release, but so far the only usable thing they've kicked out was obsoleted almost immediately.
Re:Please make this thing useful for development (Score:5, Interesting)
It is not designed for mouse so the result is a complete user frustration.
1. I've used Android apps with an external mouse on my Asus transformer, and found the experience reasonably sensible.
2. Don't forget the "nearly every platform" comment from TFA. Apps aren't currently designed for use with a mouse, but it doesn't have to stay that way. The Android app format is coming close to being the fabled "universal binary", finally giving developers the long-promised write once, run anywhere ability.
3. In light of 2. above, it isn't too hard to imagine a future UI toolkit that can sensibly switch between touch and pointer modes.
Re: Please make this thing useful for development (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
How dare they blaspheme the name of the Holy Google. Giver of search results and maps and storage to all of mankind..Blessed be the Stock of the Holy One. Amen.
Really, though. Why do you automatically lash out at this person and accuse them of being an "other"? you sound like a religious zealot. He could very likely be a linux admin, neckbeard and all. Maybe he's an apple fan. Who cares? It's irrelevant to the discussion.
Re:Please make this thing useful for development (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Perhaps the OP has not noted that there are a *LOT* of Android TV/streamer devices out there. Most of those work with a keyboard/mouse (or, preferably, an "air mouse"). I've had no issues using the core Google Apps, Netflix, XBMC-android, etc. Perhaps "Angry Birds" might be a little annoying with a mouse but more of the media-centric stuff works very nicely. As it is I've pretty much migrated my former Linux media box to an Android box that runs Play, Netflix, XBMC, and a few other media apps.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget the "nearly every platform" comment from TFA. Apps aren't currently designed for use with a mouse, but it doesn't have to stay that way. The Android app format is coming close to being the fabled "universal binary", finally giving developers the long-promised write once, run anywhere ability.
Heh. The dream of the 90s is alive on Slashdot.
It wouldn't be the first. Java and HTML/JavaScript long beat Android to the punch. In fact, HTML/JavaScript does it better. OpenGL ES on Android isn't exactly platform neutral (my Mac doesn't have an ES driver for it's Nvidia/Intel hardware so the best it can do is software rendering, while WebGL is abstracted so it can render it perfectly.)
We can use the lessons from it's forebearers to tell why it won't be adopted in the marketplace as a universal app solutio
Re:Please make this thing useful for development (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.genymotion.com/ [genymotion.com]
"Genymotion, the fastest Android emulator for app testing and presentation."
I used the free version just so I could see acertain app really work (www.flightradar24.com) and was impressed.
Re: (Score:2)
(this sound like the great shareware days of the 90s - and we moved on for a reason (tucows et al.))
Millions of people still flock to "shareware" sites like Tucows [tucows.com] and Downloads.com [cnet.com] (Now a part of the c|net family). If you mean by moving on Tucows main business is now an ISP wholesaler to resellers who need a web presence but don't want to hire an entire web team and running a wildly popular MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) Ting [ting.com] as well as domain registration and services to help a business build an online presence then yes they've moved on.
To keep this post on topic how is this different than Bl [bluestacks.com]
Re:Please make this thing useful for development (Score:4, Informative)
Have you actually tried it ? I've got an Android **desktop**, and it's usable. Most apps understand mouse buttons and wheel; the lack of the usual sensors and touchscreen is only a problem in some games.
Things could be better: I miss keyboard shortcuts, right click for Back is silly, and zooming in/out seems to be up to the OEMs. But overall, it's more than usable.
Re: (Score:1)
Hey, Windows 8 wasn't designed with the mouse in mind either, doesn't stop people from using it...
Re: (Score:1)
I hope EA sues the hell out of this guy for using the trademarked name "archon"...just because he capitalized it differently that EA did for their game....
But.... WHY? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would I want that ad-laden, spyware infested, functionally crippled crap on my desktop?
Re:But.... WHY? (Score:5, Funny)
We keep telling you. Over and over again.
STOP USING WINDOWS!
But do you listen?
OH NOOOOO!
Re: (Score:1)
No. It's not Linux.
Android is a fork of Linux with a crappy VM on top of it. Google could have totally used Linux and the world would have been better for it, but instead they decided that having control of their product was way more important.
Re: (Score:2)
Why? Why should I stop using Windows? I've used a few distributions of Linux before over a span of years as my desktop OS. I still run it in VMs, yet I still run Windows for the most part. I could tell you why, but since you're not exactly making a compelling counter-argument against it, I'm not going to waste my breath. Furthermore, the GP is right: Google has decided not to put privacy controls into Android, because it goes against their business model, so even the most trivial flashlight application is a
Bad idea. (Score:1)
I'm not sure where Google is going with this stuff, but it's a bad idea.
On one hand, you have the NDK where your standard Android flavoured Java isn't fast enough on handheld hardware. This stuff will not run under ARC, because it's compiled to target the host processor (MIPS/ARM/whatever) architecture. Then you've got the Chrome runtime, which is capable of running Android/Java apps really fast on a modern day computer. Probably fast enough that the NDK isn't required in some cases, but this too is bad bec
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Bad idea. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The IT market is based on incompatibility so fragmentation helps. Google, unofficially, can't care less, they are winning against apple, they basically have the mobile equivalent of windows plus crippleware.
Luckily the free software movement helps against this abomination, but the battle will be everlasting.
Re: Bad idea. (Score:2)
Re:Finally a universal binary standard (Score:5, Funny)
This is it; write once run anywhere has finally arrived.
Nononono. As always. "Write Once, Beta Everywhere".
Re:Finally a universal binary standard (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
So what? Apps are already including modified interfaces for various resolutions.
Why not have one app and trim functionality based on screen size. So your 4" phablet gets one interface, your 7" tablet gets a slightly modified version of that. a 10" tablet and laptop gets another.
Windows 9 is supposedly going to do that. tablets will get metro, but laptops and desktops get the old. There is no reason why you can't push the metro interface all the way down to windows phone resolutions on the same device.
Re: (Score:2)
entirely doable with what I have installed on my laptop: Virtualbox. Set up a VM in service mode, release a port to the LAN, log in and the thing automagically sends a window manager in device native resolution (or whatever resolution I have the window set at - it even dynamically adjusts so I can drag corners to resize and not lose anything). Hell, I can run a client from a PII on a VGA screen and have it not only display but interact with an instance of Windows 7 Ultimate with all its bells and whistles g
Re: (Score:1)
Wasn't Java supposed to do just that?
Re: (Score:2)
It was, but Sun fragmented Java ME (Micro Edition) so they could get millions in licensing fees from all the different variants of the runtime engine since they were pretty closely tied to each phone's hardware for performance reasons.
It's not like today, when we have quad core phones with oodles of ram for under $200, and tablets breaking the $100 barrier, and we can afford to run a generic runtime.
If this works, then Microsoft is doomed. (Score:4, Interesting)
If this technology matures to the point that it's stable on every desktop OS, then the OS is reduced is reduced to simply being a platform for the chrome browser to run on to run Android Apps. That means
1. Developers gear their software to run on Android since that's where all the software and market is.
2. Microsoft becomes irrelevant as the things consumers want are the Android Apps, not the OS.
I don't think that means Microsoft will die completely, but I do think it means they become just another small player as there is no longer any vendor lock-in to their platform.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
you see that unlike you that whom I assume is a console-peasant we the PC MASTER RACE does not want to use more equipment than our glorious PC, the point of the PC is to have all in the same place and dont bother with things like a tv or something else that is not a PC.
Now comes the mobile phone, as people tend to upload pictures of their glorious bodies or bother us with things like kik or sms we now have to have one hand on the mouse and the o
Re: (Score:2)
The dick pic is the killer app of mobile phones.
I've always said this. I'm trying to remember the first time I held a mobile phone with a camera in it, but I'm pretty sure the first thing I did was reach for my zipper.
Re: (Score:2)
Gosh, I'd be honored.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. Let me know when there is a Photoshop app. Let me know when apps are optimized for desktop display sizes and not a 5" phone.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hardly.
If this technology matures to the point that it's stable on every desktop OS, then the OS is reduced is reduced to simply being a platform for the chrome browser to run on to run Android Apps. That means
That means instead of the apps being written for the Win32/MFC/.NET runtime, they are written for the Android runtime ... how is that any different? Please explain how its different other than you're a fanboy for Chrome/Android rather than Microsoft.
1. Developers gear their software to run on Android since that's where all the software and market is.
Right, except no its not. If you want ad-ladened crap, Android is where its at. The 'market' is everywhere else. There may be a lot of apps there, but that doesn't mean anyone cares, which the stats have shown by the number of apps with exactly no dow
Re: (Score:3)
Come on, Android can change the layout of widgets, as well as the logic behind them, on everything from phones to HD TVs.
Just grab the "settings" app and see the difference in layout between a phone and a tablet. On the phone, selecting an item brings up an overlay screen of options for that selection. On a tablet, the selection list is displayed on the left, the options on the right.
You can make arbitrarily complex layouts to accommodate different needs on different displays. Same as Windows.
Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed. (Score:4, Insightful)
If this technology matures to the point that it's stable on every desktop OS, then the OS is reduced is reduced to simply being a platform
Java did that years ago. Notice how it destroyed Microsoft?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
yes....but did Java have all of the millions of apps that were indexed by a single entity, and more importantly made it easy for anybody to access and use?
Neither does Android. Oh, there are millions of apps, but most of them are completely uninteresting on a desktop or laptop and the rest won't run well. Oh, there will be apps, over time, but there's no huge number already available, developers are going to have to start more or less from scratch.
The index is new-ish, yes, but I still don't think it's going to provoke the sort of sea change the GGP supposes. If that were all it took, the Chrome store would already be doing it (there's also an index of apps
Re: (Score:1)
If this technology matures to the point that it's stable on every desktop OS, then the OS is reduced is reduced to simply being a platform for the chrome browser to run on to run Android Apps. That means
1. Developers gear their software to run on Android since that's where all the software and market is. 2. Microsoft becomes irrelevant as the things consumers want are the Android Apps, not the OS.
I don't think that means Microsoft will die completely, but I do think it means they become just another small player as there is no longer any vendor lock-in to their platform.
And since Android apps are basically Java, we are back at what we thought we were finally getting rid of -- running Java apps on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
What you're looking for is a Chromebook or Chromebox. Stripped-down, does all the basics really well and the new generation of Tegra K1-based Chromebooks have over 10 hours of battery life.
Google has already shown a couple of Android apps running natively on ChromeOS, and the proof of concept of basically all Android apps running as Chrome apps is another step in that direction.
neat (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Candy Crush Saga on the desktop!! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
you bring up a very good point, actually. People generally are moving away from the classic beige box and leg cooker, to keyboardless tablets and mobiles. That's cool, technology moves on, etc. But the most common question I hear asked in a bricks-n-mortar store from people shopping around for the latest greatest iWank is "Can I get Facebook on this?". That's it. They want their computer for nothing more than uploading pictures of their dinner, "playing" the dullest "games" I have ever seen in my life, and
Bluestacks (Score:1)
You can already do this using Bluestacks. It's alot better than that terrible emulator that comes with the sdk.
Re: (Score:1)
Now, if it were iOS apps.. (Score:1)