BlueStacks' Android App Player for Mac Moves into Beta with Support for All 750,000+ Apps

[somethingelsefl]

Originally Posted by Jeans89

It looks like that Apple is loosing this thermonuclear war against Android/Google.

Did you think the same thing when Windows was ported to Mac first time? If anything, the fact that a Mac can run all other OS's but the others can't necessarily run OSX or iOS, makes a Mac look MORE compelling, not less.

[robbyx]

Nerds will like this. But otherwise, who's going to care? I can't think of any mobile app I want to run on my desktop. I'd much rather have one of these for my new iPad mini:

http://twelvesouth.com/products/hoverbar/

[Rodimus Prime]

Originally Posted by dokujaryu

I doubt that since the Android emulator is barely functional. They probably wrote something from "scratch". I have to put "scratch" in air quotes due to the plethora of open source software surrounding android.

The Android emulator is slow for a long list of reasons. It not that it is crappy but there are a long list of reasons.
1. You are emulating the ARM cpu which just does not work well on a x86 chip.
2. You have a lot of extra dev tools running in that emulator so it is going to be debugger full time. This means a lot of extra logging is being run and I can see a lot of the memory infomtion from the running. Top it off it is running on the ARM side. Connect physical device to the computer and run those same tools. It slows down a lot and there can be some rather annoying lag on something.

Originally Posted by majkom

why would anyone, ANYONE run android apps on mac? silly, dont see any target group...

One huge one that the sells guys where I work are loving about blueStacks is it makes it a lot easier to show off the mobile apps to customers with out having carry extra stuff with them. The is also handing for support because now they can jump onto bluestacks to help solve problems real quickly.

Originally Posted by Art Mark

This is a technology in search of a market. And a reason to exist.
A good app for a mobile device will be designed to work great on a mobile device but will not take into account any usability issues for a desktop.

There is no obvious plus for a developer here. It might be cool technology, or an interesting technical issue to dig into...but it will have zero impact for 99% of the market. I do not want to run a tablet or phone app on my laptop or tower anymore than I would want a straight port of Photoshop on my iPhone.

Developers waste so much time creating solutions to imaginary problems, or, perhaps a batter way to say it is that they are making a product that no one will want. No, a few people will want. Mainly other Tech. people. But there is no mainstream use or wide adoption for this.

No really. I can already see an market it for this. As address above for sells guys for company that have mobile apps as some of their things in the product line up it is handy. Support as well.

Also MS can use it big time as guess what you can use bluestacks to now get easy access to all the android apps out there for their devices as well. (instant large app store)

[badNameErr]

Proof that venture capitalists have more money than sense!

[theelysium]

Why would I want to run stretched out Android phone apps on my Mac?

The apps for mac run better, look better and have a larger selection, this seems trivial.

[Morshu9001]

Toys for nerds. Making mobile apps work on a Mac is a ridiculously round-about way of adding cross-compatibility. The developers should just make different versions of the app.

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Originally Posted by badNameErr

Proof that venture capitalists have more money than sense!

It's funny how often the pros are wrong about investing. If I had followed the suggestions, I would have lost money in the stock market, and if I had followed the S&P500, I wouldn't have beaten the S&P500. Holding oil through the Arab Spring FTW!

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Originally Posted by somethingelsefl

Did you think the same thing when Windows was ported to Mac first time? If anything, the fact that a Mac can run all other OS's but the others can't necessarily run OSX or iOS, makes a Mac look MORE compelling, not less.

It hurts Mac app development. You know how the WINE devs claim that WINE doesn't hurt Linux/Mac development? Well, they're wrong. I've run into many apps where the "Mac" or "Linux" version is really some junky or at least sub-par WINE wrapper with the Windows version inside. I tried to download ChemSketch, and it told me to either use WINE or virtualize a WinXP machine to run it. I had to do it in XP because WINE doesn't fully support it.

This is also the reason why FAT is the standard (Windows is too retarded to read HFS) and why Microsoft calls the fact that Windows can't read very many file formats in general a Mac disadvantage.

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Originally Posted by SgtPepper12

My girlfriend has many friends who use "What's App". However, "What's App" has no Desktop version and she has no smartphone. So she installed bluestacks and "What's App".

I'd just not use What's App. It's clearly dumb.

[MacDav]

[QUOTE=rmwebs;16561652]They would be no more crappy than the iOS ones...dont start thinking for 1 second that iOS apps are any more "pro" than Android apps [COLOR="#808080"]

Do you realize He's talking about virtualization? Not necessarily the Apps themselves? Although a lot of android apps do suck, so do a lot of iOS apps. More is not better.

[Oletros]

Originally Posted by MacDav

Do you realize He's talking about virtualization? Not necessarily the Apps themselves? Although a lot of android apps do suck, so do a lot of iOS apps. More is not better.

When he says "some of the crappiest apps" it doesn't seem he's talking about the emulator

[MacDav]

Originally Posted by Oletros

When he says "some of the crappiest apps" it doesn't seem he's talking about the emulator

Well, some of the Android Apps could be the crappiest around, So could some of the iOS Apps. Whatever floats your boat. Still the main reason for bad performance would be running Apps in a virtual environment. Do you disagree?

[MacAddict1978]

Originally Posted by raremage

Well, I'm happy for folks that feel like they need to run Android apps on other platforms, but I personally doubt I'll ever use this. I can't think of one native Android app that I need that doesn't have an equivalent on iOS.

Yes, but you can't run IOS apps on a computer either.

I'd love this just for flip board.... and equivalent doesn't mean the same app. IOS has more apps without doubt, but they're policed by Apple. There are tons of apps on Android that Apple would never allow in the app store.

Windows people might have the best experience since all that new hardware is touch enabled. I think the only vexing issue with this is that touch apps and a mouse don't usually make for good friends.
-----------------
EDIT:

I forgot... Android has native support for mouse and keyboard... while I doubt a lot of apps bother to build that support in, some of them do. IOS does not. You can use a keyboard with IOS, but if you have, you see where outside of the text and space keys, nothing else is supported.

[Dagless]

Colour me interested! Obviously I'm not going to be using Instagram and Facebook mobile apps , but definitely for some games.

I'm thinking this could be huge. I guess we'll see.

[Amenic]

Originally Posted by robbyx

Nerds will like this. But otherwise, who's going to care? I can't think of any mobile app I want to run on my desktop. I'd much rather have one of these for my new iPad mini:

http://twelvesouth.com/products/hoverbar/

Niiiiice!!

Btw, i'm getting an error (check network connectivity) when i try to install apps with bluestack, anyone has this issue?

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by MacAddict1978

Yes, but you can't run IOS apps on a computer either.

Uh ? Then they aren't applications. iOS apps run on computers that use iOS as an operating system obviously.

I think you meant Macs/PCs here.

[dBeats]

Awesome, mobile spyware on my Mac!! Where do I sign up?

[Oletros]

Originally Posted by dBeats

Awesome, mobile spyware on my Mac!! Where do I sign up?

What spyware?

[GenesisST]

There's this to compile iOS app for the Mac: http://chameleonproject.org.

Haven't tried it for my current app since it says it doesn't support UITabBar and UISwitch, which I would need. And it mimics the 3.2 API and my apps is built for iOS and up. In my case, the iPad version of my universal app would be very useful on the Mac.

Good effort though... I just wished someone would pick up the ball and make a productized version of iOS 6. Might be legal issues, though.

[Stella]

Originally Posted by Morshu9001

It hurts Mac app development. You know how the WINE devs claim that WINE doesn't hurt Linux/Mac development? Well, they're wrong. I've run into many apps where the "Mac" or "Linux" version is really some junky or at least sub-par WINE wrapper with the Windows version inside.

If these Apps weren't easily ported to OSX and Linux using winelibs, they may not have been ported at all...

[Morshu9001]

Originally Posted by Stella

If these Apps weren't easily ported to OSX and Linux using winelibs, they may not have been ported at all...

Yes, but that doesn't help Mac development at all. That just makes Windows development the standard for all OSs to use with WINE. And some things would be ported to a native Mac version if there wasn't WINE.

[adamtore]

Originally Posted by shartypants

Why?? Sounds like a conversion kit that allows you to install a Volkswagen engine in your Ferrari.

I´d take that conversion any day. A 458 with a VW W16 engine. That thing would fly and have 4wd.

Guess that answers your question.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by Morshu9001

Yes, but that doesn't help Mac development at all. That just makes Windows development the standard for all OSs to use with WINE. And some things would be ported to a native Mac version if there wasn't WINE.

If the developer went the WINE route to begin with, he wouldn't have made a native port at all.

And yes, it does help Mac development. With WINE, we have more software compatibility for Macs, which means more consumers being able to transition to the platform, which grows its market share and makes it more interesting to target as a development platform.

[Avatarshark]

Some of you asked why would Google have to start a shell company. Well if Google did it, then people would say, "Ya, they basically just finally the sdk some justice" or "Of course they can do it, they wrote the freaking software for Android". But if they released it as a third party, it would make it seem that their software is so open sourced that even a third-party can create a emulator for it on both platform.

[Oletros]

Originally Posted by Avatarshark

But if they released it as a third party, it would make it seem that their software is so open sourced that even a third-party can create a emulator for it on both platform.

Ejem, their software is so open sourced that even a third-party can create a emulator for it on both platforms

Why they have to use a shell company?

[Avatarshark]

Originally Posted by Oletros

Ejem, their software is so open sourced that even a third-party can create a emulator for it on both platforms

Why they have to use a shell company?

Originally Posted by Avatarshark

Some of you asked why would Google have to start a shell company. Well if Google did it, then people would say, "Ya, they basically just finally the sdk some justice" or "Of course they can do it, they wrote the freaking software for Android". But if they released it as a third party, it would make it seem that their software is so open sourced that even a third-party can create a emulator for it on both platform.

I already responded in the post above

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by Avatarshark

I already responded in the post above

Your reasoning for your unjustified paranoia makes no sense. If Google wanted to release a App Player for Mac or Windows or Linux, they would as Google. They wouldn't "start a shell company" to prove "Android is open source". We can check the code and see it is open source, and an App player doesn't help prove it anyway.

[twoodcc]

Sounds pretty cool to me.