BlueStacks lets Android apps frolic on PCs A startup called BlueStacks has come out of stealth mode with shiny new venture funding and an eponymous product that lets Android apps run on PCs. BlueStacks runs the open source Android runtime environment on top of an x64 hypervisor so Android apps – excepting those compiled down to ARM hardware using C and C++ – can be …
What is "android app quality"? Their stability apparently not. Their visual design or underlying function? That doesn't make sense as there's nothing inherently android-only/windows-impossible except what's tied to being a phone-app (which is useless on a computer).
There must be something to it, otherwise you wouldn't get that many thumbs up, so what's the idea? Do you mean an emulator to run it on a WinPho (that's not in the article)?
"What does this even mean?"
It's sort of an attempt at humour - possibly not that successful judging by the reply - playing on a couple of stereotypes which - either now, in the past, or some interesting combination thereof - have arguably been deserved.
I have been told it can be terrifically effective sometimes although, frankly, I seem to be having some problems with it.
If I had to explain those stereotypes...
In the case of Android applications, some folk have noticed that the entry requirements to the Android Market, though punishing, have at least lead to a consistent level of quality over much of it's content. For some strange reason it reminds me of the excitement I used to feel when looking on Tucows in the 90's and discovering - joy of joys ! - that someone had written and uploaded another great version of Solitaire for Windows - what fun !
As for Windows, well surely I need not explain that one....
PS. Sorry about us continually lobbing bits of metal probes and things at your planet.
PPS. Sorry about not tidying them up when they break down.
..like the one that's included with the Android SDK, although it should be possible to make it run faster, surely?
However, given further thought, and given the (perceived?) cannibalization of the PC market by devices such as the iPad, this start-up might be making a good move by attempting to get this software onto OEM PC's etc.
This platform could end up turning the Android market into something akin to a PC-version of Apple's iTunes/Mac App Stores. This may help flagging PC's sales, in the long run, and *should* be backed by Google and Android developers, who should be able to further their application sales (will Microsoft go for this, directly, given their WP7 aspirations?).
Positioning a wealth of Apps beneath the PC user's nose can only be a good thing for all concerned, IMHO.
...And downloaded the android SDK, which already has a perfectly servicable emulator that runs android apps. Bit of tweaking to the UI of that to integrate it better with the desktop and you're done.
So.. Windows only, US only (tied to the amazon marketplace, which hates us foreigners). And they'll probably want money for it too..
But the normal home user has no idea that Android SDK even exists and no interest in installing it to run apps when a simple emulator that would be preinstalled would do the job for them.
All they and the vast majority of people in the world want is to click an icon on the desktop and run a program / app.
This could be a great step forward for many with simple apps doing what they want without having to buy bloatware / business software to do simple tasks at home.
"one thing that BlueStacks won't be doing any time soon is enabling iPhone and iPad applications to run... but legally it is impossible..."
Perhaps I'm too soft upstairs, is there something in the T&Cs of an iPx app and using it on another platform that is most likely incompatible anyway? Sure, they probably all say don't reverse engineer our code but there isn't anything stopping anyone from writing an app for the purpose of having it reverse engineered and building a translation layer from that.
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