Category Archives: Android on PC Editorial

Android apps will run on Chrome OS, Windows Mac OS

Run Android Apps on Windows, MAC OS and LINUXIt seems that Google may unleash full Google play Store access on their Chrome line of products.

Google play Store will allow you to run more than a million Android apps on your Chromebook at first, expanding such functionality then into Windows, Mac OS and Linux based computers, available through their Chrome web navigator.

This comes not as a complete surprise: The working concept was already kind of there, already embedded and available on Chrome OS for a year or so, but -very- limited:

Some time ago Google started a project called “App Runtime for Chrome” (ARC). They closely worked with a few selected Android developers, allowing for a handful of selected apps to emerge on their Chrome Web Store, as some kind of “proof of concept”.

Some users at reddit are discussing this partially hidden, still “under construction” new feature, included in Google’s latest Chrome OS release for chromebooks.

When will Android apps run on Windows, MAC OS and Linux ?

Surely Google will unveil some details on GOOGLE I/O event this year. The only information emerging on the Internet at this time comes from some power users that got curious over this new development and started peeking and poking inside Chrome OS code.

They found some text strings and coding already in place that surely supports this new Google Play Store compatibility:

<message name="IDS_ARC_OPT_IN_DIALOG_DESCRIPTION" desc="Description of the opt-in dialog for Android apps.">
Choose from over a million apps and games on Google Play to install and use on your <ph name="DEVICE_TYPE">$1<ex>Chromebook</ex></ph>.
</message>

Maybe Google will also include Chrome extensions and Themes into their Google Play Store offerings, effectively replacing the -by now oldish and somewhat neglected- Chrome Web Store.

Bluestacks partnerships with Lenovo

Bluestacks preinstalled in Lenovo “Idea” consumer line

Bluestacks and LenovoThe guys at Bluestacks firmly believes we need to run Android games and apps on PC. In their search for strategic partnerships, they first shaked hands with AMD, as we commented on a post last year. Now in a nice move Bluestacks managed to get shipped inside Lenovo’s “Idea” consumer line, including their new Ideapad notebooks and netbooks. This move brings  in excess of 750.000 apps and games into those nice Lenovo x86 PCs. Certainly a nice score for Bluestacks and their Android on PC emulator which certainly is welcome by the final user.

Needless to say, Android itself also gets a nice side-benefit on each and every step into new niches, specially given the actual mobile OS war, which now includes Windows RT, a surprisingly stable, fast, and professional tablet OS. -Side note: We actually were quite impressed with our Surface RT tablet (which we actually already sold away)-. Hence, any niche trenching gained in Android is a good move, and needless to say, the Android on PC niche is the somewhat missing mother lode niche.

Bluestacks and Surface PRO tablet ?

While writing the earlier paragraph I got to think: what about installing and running Bluestacks on the (at this time, upcoming) Microsoft’s Surface PRO tablet ? Wouldn’t that be a bold one to achieve ?

Not surprisingly we found out that the guys at Bluestacks are already working along those lines. It seems they’ve been tinkering with their product into fitting specs not only for the Surface PRO (which is after all an x86 windows platform) but also for the Surface RT OS, which runs over ARM processor -just as Android does-.  Both platforms seems -at least on paper- an easy platform achievement for Bluestacks. Time will tell … right now at Bluestacks website you get to download only  the MAC or Windows version of their emulator.

 

 

Android Mini PC: The Heat is On!

The Heat Problem on Android Mini PC

Android Mini PC Heat SinksBy now, you can find a plethora of different Android Mini PC devices on the market, as they seem to fulfill a most attractive road for the geek inside all of us:

You may run your favorite games and apps inside those minuscule, almost pen drive sized Android mini PC devices. A typical Android Mini PC shall cover a wide range of niches, as they typically include WIFI, HDMI and even USB OTG capabilities couple with relatively powerful CPUs and GPUs, while keeping the price tag (well) under U$S 100.

The Android mini PC is marketed as the answer to your search for the perfect media player, media presenter, controller, or ubiquitous micro desktop computer. But incredibly enough,  there is a caveat, a design aspect that was left out of the drawing boards, and we submit to you that this is not a minor problem:

Android Mini PC HEAT

The heat dissipation may not prove enough when the small -yet powerful- Android Mini PC are running your apps and games on 1080p resolution through your living room TV. This might end up invariably burning out your Android Mini PC!.

Given the ubiquitous usage proposal, which includes  leaving your Android Mini PC turned ON indefinitely behind your TV (as a media player example), coupled with the small casing all these mini PC  are built into, heat might end up adding up into a critical level, finally managing to burn out your Android mini PC components.

Some users are finding out -in the hard way- that their Android mini PC devices burn out after aproximately two weeks of continuos operation, behind their living room TV rigs. This is obviously not acceptable. Some users come up over the net with different heat sink mods for their Andorid Mini PC. Others purchase one of the newer Android mini PC products, like the smartly designed media play box PIVOS XIOS DS which includes nice heat dissipators and a bigger casing factor to efficiently cope with the excess of heat.

So be cautious if you are planning to purchase an Android mini PC and consider the heat problem. You may end up in the need of implementing a heat sink mod, or you may choose carefully for those Android mini PC that actually got a way to dismiss the excess of heat.

View your Android on a PC

Duplicate the screen from your Android on a PC monitor

android on a pcYou may need to duplicate in real time the screen output from your Android on a PC monitor. As an example, you may want to capture a certain task inside your Android and create a tutorial or even project it into a big screen as part of an Android presentation. If you are in the need of viewing your Android on a PC screen, you can do it by hooking up your Android device through an USB cable into your PC and use a nifty little utility called Android Screen monitor.

Requirements for viewing your Android on a PC monitor

 Sorrily  enough, upon inspecting the Android Screen Monitor homepage, we find out that the instructions to manage the real time display of your Android on a PC screen are not for the computer illiterates:

In order to successfully view your Android on a PC monitor you will need to follow these steps:

  1.  Install  JAVA JRE (JDK) version 5 or 6 into your PC and set a path for it into the java bin directory.
  2. You will also need to install the Android SDK itself -another time and space consuming donwload and installation process- and set a path into sdk tools and platform-tools directory.
  3. Download the actual Android Screen Monitor.
  4. Ensure your Android device is plugged into your computer through the USB cable
  5. Open a CMD window and run the following command: java -jar asm.jar in order to run that java program.
  6. Select your Android device from the eventual list of android devices you may have connected into your PC (we asume you will only have one, but if you got more than one, you will need to specifically select the one that you want to bring it’s Android screen into your PC).

You will then be able to view your Android on a PC monitor.

Android on PC

Android on PCAndroid on PC up and running

At the time of this writing, there are three ways of running Android on PC.  They require different approaches and knowledge / dificulty levels. As a result, they will probably satisfy the requirements of different people, with different tasks or ideas on their mind. We shall present you with these solutions and later on, we will add tutorials and discussions about each one of these ways to get a working Android on PC, be it a desktop, or better yet something more deserving of it, like a netbook. Continue reading