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BlueStacks Allows You to Run Android Apps on a Mac

i downloaded this just to use the whatsapp messenger. I have friends who send me messages on my phone through there all the time, but I am spoiled by the messages app to txt from my mac. Just last night I was thinking, why dont they make whatsapp a mac app! so here it is somewhat:) I think this will also be useful for an app I used to use with an android tab called Torque for my car. Torque + MBA 11 would be amazing!
 
hstaniloff said:
This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Why in the world would I want to run Android apps on my Mac? Maybe if I'm a developer for Android apps - along with iOS apps - then maybe. But other than that, I can't see a Mac user playing with Android apps on their Mac.
It seems like sometimes people create things just to say they can do it without any rhyme-or-reason as to what purpose it would serve.
Click to expand...

Let me ask you this, oh smart one. Do you believe that anyone that owns a Mac would not own or have use for Android apps/etc? Because it sounds to me like you believe that Mac users would only be interested in something like this if it ran iOS apps. I'm not trying to introduce a strawman argument. But that's how your post came across.
 
For those people that have downloaded this and are using whatsapp, how exaftly does it work? As far as I know it whatsapl works with a phone number. So do ur messages get recieved to both ur phone and Mac?
 
samcraig said:
I agree. But you did question what app is available on iOS that isn't on the Mac. My answer was strictly factual ;)
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I should have stated I meant functionality though. App availability of course you can find examples, but in the end, it's the task that the app performs that crucial, not the actual app itself.

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hstaniloff said:
Maybe if I'm a developer for Android apps - along with iOS apps - then maybe.
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People keep saying that, yet all the SDKs already come with simlators.
 
devinher said:
I don't really get this. Why would you want to run Android apps on a Mac? Doesn't Mac already have a much better selection of quality apps than Android?
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/thread

It's like making an adapter to put Schwinn tires on your Ferrari. :rolleyes:
 
a0me said:
Console emulators? Google apps? Flash Player? Task Manager?
Click to expand...

There are far more useful emulators available natively on mac, access to everything google and full access to flash in any browser you like.

What would you want with a sandboxed task manager on a desktop OS? it would only be able to manage the emulated apps if at all.

This is not android apps on iOS but OS X.

If it was android apps on iOS i can only find one useful app atm and that would be OnLive. The greatly touted iOS version is still in limbo.

Winni said:
And if Apple allowed you to run your iOS apps on OS X, the iOS users here would quickly shut up and instead try to find uses for that feature, too.
Click to expand...

No. It would still be useless. all the best iOS software has a native desktop counterpart as long as hardware permits.
 
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samcraig said:
Thought of one and only one that people might use if the Mac had an iOS emulator.

iBooks.

But I'm not one to read books on my computer anyway. But that's one App on the iPhone/iPad that has no counter on the Mac because iBooks are proprietary to iOS.
Click to expand...

Though I rather read on my iPad, it would be nice to sometimes be able to load up the epub on the Mac to quickly check a reference. Apple really should enable preview to open our epubs.
 
faroZ06 said:
When the iPhone 4 first came out, 60% of the people surveyed thought it had 4G LTE.
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Can't blame them. This naming convention for phone generations and the cellular network naming conventions causes a lot of confusion. 2g, 3g, edge, 4g, 4g LTE. Will the 5g phones have faster data speeds than my old 4g with lte is what people will be saying next. After all, it is 5g, that's faster than 4g rite?

It's like using iI1lLoO0s5S characters in those stupid captcha things or passwords and license codes. :rolleyes:
 
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KnightWRX said:
Which is the number reason to not use iBooks at all if you ask me. ;)

Kindle is so much more ubiquitous.
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I don't like iBooks all that much either, but frankly it's functionality is much better than the Kindle and Google Books alternatives on the iPad. Last time I checked neither of those alternatives lets you open up your pdfs and epubs from other stores. iBooks doesn't have that great handling of pdfs, but at least it is possible to load up your pdfs and non-drmed epubs into it. Even the advanced PDF readers typically don't handle epubs all that well. Anyway, all this to say the book handling on the iOS and OS X environment lacks interoperability.

Preview should be able to open all epubs, and ibooks should add the advanced features in Preview so that there is a single App that can handle all our needs. This is my biggest frustration with the Apple ecosystem as it's currently implemented. One would have thought with all this iOS influence in OS X, iBooks would have made an appearance in ML. I guess there is always next year.

Plus, iCloud ought to push all our books and changes, not only for those purchased on the iTunes store.
 
KnightWRX said:
That's the point though, what apps are missing from OS X. 500,000 iOS apps that offer all unique functionality not found on a Mac already ?
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Without trawling through hundreds of thousands of apps, I can't easily answer that question. :)

But I can think of several reasons why an Android/iOS simulator could be very useful to some people:

- Try before you buy. Try out apps before you buy an Android/iOS device.
- Present iOS/Android content on a bigger screen, capture & record it maybe.
- iOS/Android multi-tasking.
- iOS/Android with a physical keyboard! Maybe - if the simulator is clever enough - with built-in keyboard shortcuts for copy & paste etc.
- Keep using your apps while your new iPad is in it's torturous charge cycle ;)
 
christophermdia said:
i downloaded this just to use the whatsapp messenger. I have friends who send me messages on my phone through there all the time, but I am spoiled by the messages app to txt from my mac. Just last night I was thinking, why dont they make whatsapp a mac app! so here it is somewhat:) I think this will also be useful for an app I used to use with an android tab called Torque for my car. Torque + MBA 11 would be amazing!
Click to expand...

Same here, for those who has a good amount of friends/relative overseas. Whatsapp is a must, sure you can use iMessage but since it can't guarantee all the time that your message will go through data, whatsapp is a safer bet. Also, whatsapp is cross platform. I might just give this a try over the weekend.
 
Why would I want to run an Android version of Facebook or Twitter on my Mac? Most of these apps are totally pointless and inferior to the iOS or Mac version. Of course, there are probably some Android apps that I would like to check out, so this can only be good news. I just can't think of any at the moment.
 
devinher said:
I don't really get this. Why would you want to run Android apps on a Mac? Doesn't Mac already have a much better selection of quality apps than Android?
Click to expand...

I rather felt the same way. Why would you want to run a phone app on your computer.

I could see it as perhaps a development tool but that's it
 
a0me said:
Console emulators? Google apps? Flash Player? Task Manager?
Click to expand...

Those are valid in an iOS vs android debate, but why would you ever run any of those on your Mac?

Console emulators would have an extra layer of emulation on top of the console emulation that a native emulator doesn't have. Google apps are all built for touch, flash player can already be embedded and there would be absolutely no use for an android task manager on a Mac.

Even games would be useless, as they don't have keyboard/mouse controls.
 
179202 said:
This is for Mac OS, not iOS. So all those things you listed already have more functional counterparts on the Mac.
Click to expand...


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kurosov said:
There are far more useful emulators available natively on mac, access to everything google and full access to flash in any browser you like.

What would you want with a sandboxed task manager on a desktop OS? it would only be able to manage the emulated apps if at all.

This is not android apps on iOS but OS X.

If it was android apps on iOS i can only find one useful app atm and that would be OnLive. The greatly touted iOS version is still in limbo.
Click to expand...
Looks like I should have added the sarcasm tag.
 
whooleytoo said:
Without trawling through hundreds of thousands of apps, I can't easily answer that question. :)

But I can think of several reasons why an Android/iOS simulator could be very useful to some people:
Click to expand...

None of which are truely good reasons.

whooleytoo said:
- Try before you buy. Try out apps before you buy an Android/iOS device.
Click to expand...

I buy my phone for its capabilities as a phone. And how would you try out the apps if you can't buy them ? Piracy ? Might as well just pirate them directly to a device that can run them.

whooleytoo said:
- Present iOS/Android content on a bigger screen, capture & record it maybe.
Click to expand...

Both iOS and Android can already stream the display over the air or use HDMI to have their content displayed on a bigger screen. But then again, just use native ways to get "content" on your bigger screen.

whooleytoo said:
- iOS/Android multi-tasking.
Click to expand...

Hum... I don't even understand what you mean here. iOS/Android are both multi-tasking OSes and you'd be running it on OS X, a multi-tasking OS. What multi-tasking are you open to achieve here that you can't with proper OS X software ?

whooleytoo said:
- iOS/Android with a physical keyboard! Maybe - if the simulator is clever enough - with built-in keyboard shortcuts for copy & paste etc.
Click to expand...

Both OSes already support physical keyboards. No need to emulate apps on OS X for that. And again, why not just use OS X applications ? What advantage is there to running the software with a physical keyboard if you can get the same tasks done already with OS X software ?

whooleytoo said:
- Keep using your apps while your new iPad is in it's torturous charge cycle ;)
Click to expand...

The iPad works with a wire coming out of it. You can use apps while it charges. But again, if you're going to sit down on your Mac while your iPad is charging, why limit yourself to iOS/Android applications ? Doesn't even start to make sense...
 
timmodugdale said:
Um, I think I"m missing something, but maybe I'm wrong. You are on a Mac with a fully functional browser capable of connecting to the web-based Google Apps. Why do you need or want to use a mobile version on your Mac when you can use the "real thing" in a browser? I am not sure, but I doubt the mobile version has features that the web-based version doesn't. True?
Click to expand...
As far as I know, Indoor Maps and Offline Mode are only available in Google Maps for Android.
 
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