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AMD Partners With BlueStacks To Bring Android Apps To PCs
eldavojohn writes "News outlets are reporting that AMD has partnered with BlueStacks to bring Android apps to AppZone Player, something that will apparently allow the more than 500,000 mobile apps to run on your PC. From their announcement: 'What's special about the player on AMD-based products? There are many challenges with running apps that were originally designed for phones or tablets on a PC that in most cases has a larger screen and higher resolution display. To solve this, BlueStacks has designed and optimized the player for AMD Radeon graphics and in particular, our OpenGL drivers found in our APUs and GPUs so you get a great 'big-screen' experience. Additionally, the apps are integrated into AppZone, our online showcase and one-stop-shop for apps accelerated by AMD technology.' Unfortunately this appears to only work on AMD-based PCs (although nowhere does it say that it won't work on Intel CPUs or non-Radeon GPUs). Also no word on how they overcame the difference between a mouse and touchscreen (think pinch to zoom)."
Thank you, Press-release-dot.
Now explain why I would even *want* to use phone apps on my desktop?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Multi-touch trackpad, perhaps?
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Pinch to zoom is pretty easily handled by the mouse wheel, or say click both the left and right mouse button and drag. You could also do 3 finger touch if you include the middle button. Things that wouldn't work with a mouse would be rotations for example. Those could be handled by buttons on the keyboard, or I guess mouse gestures or other button combinations (left and middle to rotate left for example).
which is totally what she said
And then I'll be happy. Especially if it allows me to use Netflix, etc. (one of the few reasons I might boot to windows on my PC still)
I use a multiclient messenger (IMO) on my phone that, sadly, does not have a desktop port.
Looking around, they did try to make one, and swiftly abandoned it. Other than that, though, I don't think I'd use it for much, concept is still cool though.
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The problem with phone applications in general is they are designed for either a small display (phone) or large display (tablet).
A UI scrunched-up to fit a phone display suddenly becomes way too spacious when run on a tablet (let alone a 23" 1920x1600 monitor). Android tries to address this by allowing multiple layouts for your UI based on the display it's running on but I've not seen many applications actually implement that. I wonder how BlueStack is planning to address that. TFA sounds like they are mainly pimping "cloud sync" of app info.
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According to one of my friends who works with AMD, the BlueStacks folks are having major technical problems and their investors are growing increasingly impatient - apparently for good reason. Rosen Sharma is on the spot to deliver but unless a miracle happens, the whole AMD deal is nothing but hype because they won't be able to deliver on their end.
"There are many challenges with running apps that were originally designed for phones or tablets on a PC that in most cases has a larger screen and higher resolution display."
If only there was a way that you can limit the amount of screen a single app can take. If only... But, one can dream, one can dream...
Pinch to zoom could easily be implemented using the scroll wheel of a mouse.
I guess it's much easier to "dumb down" the desktop instead of trying to make "smarter" phone apps.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Bluestacks. BluuuuuuueStacksssssssssss. Blue. Stacks.
Not feeling it. Sorry.
First off most Android apps suck. Second, they're built for touch screens. Third most Android apps suck. Fourth, most Android apps are built to circumvent limitations in the phones browser and the download speed. Fifth most Android apps suck.
ctrl-scroll-wheel zoom in. ctrl-scroll-wheel zoom out. ctrl-scroll-wheel zoom in. ctrl-scroll-wheel zoom out. Feel like I can kick some serious ass now...
I can't take anyone seriously who says "app" without putting it in inverted commas and rolling their eyes. Most apps are basically shitty browsers which can only view one website for some reason. Also everything has to be distributed through Google, which I never felt like registering my phone with.
You guys are missing the point! This is all about Windows 8 tablets, which are going to be on the market very soon. The Windows app store is going to be sparse, and honestly, the biggest drawback to getting a Windows tablet. With Bluestacks, you get all the Metro apps AND all your android apps. This is a HUGE deal.
Think about when Intel comes out with the next generation of ultra low power x86 processors: Windows 8 tablets running on x86. You get everything you could want: Real desktop apps, Metro Apps, and all the Android smartphone/tablet apps. Throw it in a case with a bluetooth keyboard + trackpack (or mouse), and why would anyone need or want a laptop? I think it could probably replace the desktop for many users.
I'm telling you, this is HUGE. It will allows Windows 8 tablets to overcome their barrier to entering the market: a mature app store.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
Another example is Cam Scanner. There are a lot of programs that can do image manipulation but hardly anything that can automatically produce useful results.
Cam Scanner on my phone works nicely but the camera is crap compared to any decent digital camera (>$100) so I am still looking for an easy way to digitize documents without having to scan them. There a quite a few people searching on different forums but nothing similar for Windows, Linux or Mac seems available.
pinch-to-zoom with a mouse could be done by pressing down on the click wheel, and while held down, roll up to zoom in and down to zoom out, or vice versa.
Why is everyone over complicating this?
Pinch To Zoom: Just use mouse wheel
Pinch to Rotate: Hold mouse wheel down, have you move in a circular pattern in the way you want to rotate
Accelerometer: Push a button to toggle mouse usage where current setting is center, moving it determines how far the device is tilted. Have another key to recenter and have an adjustable dead zone.
Or is there something Im missing here that makes it harder than this?
I don't even know what a Tango is, but I'm only six degrees of separation away from its creator, right?
So does it run in WINE?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Here at TouchMi we have been using Bluestacks for quite some time. We really love it. Here is an example of it running on a 100" touchscreen we built. The version that is running here is still beta however its very responsive and works quite well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSSey2JEzSo&feature=plcp
Try doing it the other way round. In the snow.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I have a Transformer Infinity and it's screen 1920x1200 is bigger than even my big screen PC, at 1920x1050. It's way bigger than the proposed Window 8 slates. So I can run some Android apps, the ones designed for phones, but not my stock trading app which uses the full screen size (4 columns of 480 pixels = 1920).
It comes with a clip on keyboard/trackpad, I can plug a mouse in if I want, but I never do. The trackpad is never used. I view the cursor as a downgrade.
Then there's the battery life, I keep reading vague promises that Intel chips will deliver relatively good battery life, but have yet to see it. The latest smartphones with Intel have 20 hours between charges which is pitiful. So I suspect the Windows 8 battery life is poor and they're avoiding getting it measured. My point being I would spend a lot more ($799) for a shorter batter life, and smaller screen, and the gain would be to run the few Windows Metro apps. The desktop apps, I think they're unsuitable for tablets since they have no tablet interface and so I expect they'll never be run on it.
Why would I do that? Why wouldn't I buy an Android tablet, and a cheap PC for the same money? Or skip the PC if I don't want to run desktop apps?
Multitouch trackpads?
Summary fail.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I suspect the BlueStacks Agent is responsible for the sudden arrival of popup ads bottom right of the screen, even when the agent is stopped. There's no trivial way of unloading it, either. So away with the piece of junk. And onow I've got HD-logcollector running all over the system.
If android actually gets a working X Windows you'll be able to have a little ARM device running the thing natively able to put it on your screen. With USB networking it could be a plug in dongle sort of thing.
Of course that's not going to happen so the best we can ever expect is VNC. It astounds me that android took the 1980s approach of a local display only when every single android device has vastly more grunt than the sort of stuff that was happily running X in the late 1990s.
You can just run an Android image inside VirtualBox. It's free and it works today (and it actually works reasonably well).
you do not have to open a web browser then type the name of the address, then login info if it is not saved
Drag the globe or lock icon from the address bar to your desktop, then tell the browser to save your username and password.
The apps can provide more functionality too and can sync with your phone.
Do they sync with phones whose service costs $100 per year, or does one have to upgrade to a smartphone whose service costs $400+ per year?
Trying opening QR codes and MS codes without a smartphone lately?
How did you plan on scanning the QR codes? Most PCs don't come with a handheld rear-facing camera. Were you planning on holding them up to your monitor to scan them with a webcam, or were you planning on scanning them with a flatbed scanner?
Or maybe pinch to zoom is irrelevant because the screen is large enough that you don't need to zoom.
And maybe it isn't. A screen big enough to display the whole USA at street level wouldn't fit on my desk.
If you mapped pixels 1:1, the app would end up looking fairly enormous on most monitors; but if you used monitor DPI to display the app at the same size as the phone's screen, bitmap UI elements would not be happy.
Android applications can have four sets of bitmaps: low (120 dpi), medium (160 dpi), high (240 dpi), and retina (320 dpi). Phone-sized applications running in a window on the PC, with the title bar where the notification bar once was, would probably use the low density (ldpi) set.
You'd also run into the bigger question of whether anybody actually wants 'widgets'.
If thousands of phone-sized applications were suddenly made available as widgets, people might be more inclined to use them.
Most scroll wheels provide clicks, not a smooth roll.
Then calibrate it such that four scroll wheel units provide a doubling: each unit does the touch gesture to multiply or divide the size of the active area by 1.19.
"Also no word on how they overcame the difference between a mouse and touchscreen (think pinch to zoom)."
Yes that one is hard, I will have to think about that for at least 2 seconds...scroll wheel.
You do not need a developer account. That is only if you write IOS apps. It is free to create Andriod apps which is why I own a droid. Applets on the Mac are nice and with a few keystrokes you can check the weather without the hassle of opening a tab and typing in a web browser.
MacOSX did it right. It is just Win 8 that implemented it wrong.
http://saveie6.com/
Do they sync with phones whose service costs $100 per year, or does one have to upgrade to a smartphone whose service costs $400+ per year?
You do not need a developer account. That is only if you write IOS apps. It is free to create Andriod apps which is why I own a droid.
I agree with you: Android fits my needs better because of the lack of a recurring cost for a developer account. But I was referring to the cost of cellular service, not a developer account. I currently carry a separate 4" Android tablet and dumbphone because dumbphone service from Virgin Mobile costs $15 per three months. If I were to integrate them into one device, I'd have to pay for smartphone service, which from Virgin Mobile costs $35 per three months.