Android Apps Now Unofficially Able To Run On Any Major Desktop OS

An anonymous reader writes A developer who goes by the handle Vladikoff has tweaked Google's App Runtime for Chrome (ARC) to allow any Android app to run on any major desktop operating system, not just the handful announced last week which were also limited to Chrome OS. His tweaked version of ARC is re-packaged as ARChon. The install isn't very straightforward, and you have to be in developer mode on Chrome. But there's a support forum on reddit. The extension will work on any OS running the desktop version of Chrome 37 and up as long as the user also installs chromeos-apk, which converts raw Android app packages (APKs) to a Chrome extension. Ars Technica reports that apps run this way are buggy, fast, and crash often but expresses optimism for when Google officially "opens the floodgates on the Play Store, putting 1.3 million Android apps onto nearly every platform."

Comments

But.... WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I want that ad-laden, spyware infested, functionally crippled crap on my desktop?

Re:But.... WHY?

[Chas]

We keep telling you. Over and over again.

STOP USING WINDOWS!

But do you listen?

OH NOOOOO!

Re:But.... WHY?

[Chryana]

Why? Why should I stop using Windows? I've used a few distributions of Linux before over a span of years as my desktop OS. I still run it in VMs, yet I still run Windows for the most part. I could tell you why, but since you're not exactly making a compelling counter-argument against it, I'm not going to waste my breath. Furthermore, the GP is right: Google has decided not to put privacy controls into Android, because it goes against their business model, so even the most trivial flashlight application is a privacy nightmare. Furthermore, I simply can't think of any Android application that I would want to use on my desktop.

Re:But.... WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It's not Linux.

Android is a fork of Linux with a crappy VM on top of it. Google could have totally used Linux and the world would have been better for it, but instead they decided that having control of their product was way more important.

Bad idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure where Google is going with this stuff, but it's a bad idea.

On one hand, you have the NDK where your standard Android flavoured Java isn't fast enough on handheld hardware. This stuff will not run under ARC, because it's compiled to target the host processor (MIPS/ARM/whatever) architecture. Then you've got the Chrome runtime, which is capable of running Android/Java apps really fast on a modern day computer. Probably fast enough that the NDK isn't required in some cases, but this too is bad because a handheld will most certainly not share the same performance.

So the only thing they've really succeeded in doing here is fragmenting the Android market even more. I'm not sure why they weren't content trying to maintain control over the handheld market, unless they're thinking that the whole tablet craze is already dying out and they need an escape plan for when people inevitably swing back to the laptop/PC side of things.

Re:Bad idea.

[GigaplexNZ]

They're trying to leverage the Android market to make Chrome OS more appealing. They don't want this hack running on 3rd party operating systems.

Re:Bad idea.

[marcello_dl]

The IT market is based on incompatibility so fragmentation helps. Google, unofficially, can't care less, they are winning against apple, they basically have the mobile equivalent of windows plus crippleware.
Luckily the free software movement helps against this abomination, but the battle will be everlasting.

Re:Bad idea.

[keneng]

ChromeOS is not appealing to me as a GNOME GNU/Linux user. Android/Linux is not appealing to me either.

Google is tricky to introduce something NEW/FRESH: "Try Google's tiny-bit better OS ChromeOS". DON'T BE FOOLED!
ChromeOS like AndroidOS/Windows/AppleOSX is compromising or constraining. Google is misdirecting users to abandon the full-blown GNU/Linux alternatives; Google is doing their best to limit users' digital freedoms by convincing them to use new brand names they have market control over: ChromeOS/AndroidOS. It's all very similar to IBM, Microsoft, and Apple strategies luring people with eye candy or cool features at the expense of your digital freedoms and vendor neutrality(hardware independance). Don't fall for it.

I wish Google would do the right thing and the coolest thing: release a full-blown GNU/Linux with any choice desktop you want(KDE/GNOME/LXDE...) on their brand-name hardware products. Even better would be simply to provide Gentoo, Debian and Ubuntu images for all their brand-name hardware products. Let the consumers decide what flavor they like rather than forcing ChromeOS and AndroidOS down their throats.

Re: Bad idea.

[non0score]

You can just install it yourself (it's not a secret you can install Linux on chromebooks). It's not like chrome os can't run Linux. If the average user can't figure this out, they probably shouldn't be using Linux in the first place. They should stick to something easier like, well, chrome os.

Re: Bad idea.

[non0score]

Yeah, and the NDK also has a target called "x86", and the OS can tell what platform it's running on. How do you think NDK apps are presently being distributed on the Play store? Not sure what your point is.

If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[Anonymous Coward]

If this technology matures to the point that it's stable on every desktop OS, then the OS is reduced is reduced to simply being a platform for the chrome browser to run on to run Android Apps. That means

1. Developers gear their software to run on Android since that's where all the software and market is.
2. Microsoft becomes irrelevant as the things consumers want are the Android Apps, not the OS.

I don't think that means Microsoft will die completely, but I do think it means they become just another small player as there is no longer any vendor lock-in to their platform.

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[Kkloe]

I can see this is a console-peasant, let me handle this one

you see that unlike you that whom I assume is a console-peasant we the PC MASTER RACE does not want to use more equipment than our glorious PC, the point of the PC is to have all in the same place and dont bother with things like a tv or something else that is not a PC.
Now comes the mobile phone, as people tend to upload pictures of their glorious bodies or bother us with things like kik or sms we now have to have one hand on the mouse and the other on the phone, meaning we will now be fully occupied with our hands.
A keyboard and mouse configuration helps us watch pictures of kittens and write comments about how other people are wrong and between the writing we can pick cheetos up from our bellybutton-bowl but now to hold a phone in the hand that does the cheetos picking, and that is just not right.

And for your second question, simply to run apps.

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[PopeRatzo]

Now comes the mobile phone, as people tend to upload pictures of their glorious bodies

The dick pic is the killer app of mobile phones.

I've always said this. I'm trying to remember the first time I held a mobile phone with a camera in it, but I'm pretty sure the first thing I did was reach for my zipper.

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[Lawrence_Bird]

Sure. Let me know when there is a Photoshop app. Let me know when apps are optimized for desktop display sizes and not a 5" phone.

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[BitZtream]

Hardly.

If this technology matures to the point that it's stable on every desktop OS, then the OS is reduced is reduced to simply being a platform for the chrome browser to run on to run Android Apps. That means

That means instead of the apps being written for the Win32/MFC/.NET runtime, they are written for the Android runtime ... how is that any different? Please explain how its different other than you're a fanboy for Chrome/Android rather than Microsoft.

1. Developers gear their software to run on Android since that's where all the software and market is.

Right, except no its not. If you want ad-ladened crap, Android is where its at. The 'market' is everywhere else. There may be a lot of apps there, but that doesn't mean anyone cares, which the stats have shown by the number of apps with exactly no downloads.

2. Microsoft becomes irrelevant as the things consumers want are the Android Apps, not the OS.

So basically, just like Windows now. People don't want 'windows' they want an environment they are used to and works well, and more importantly the apps they've been using for years. You've given no actual reason why people would want new android apps that work entirely differently over what they already have and are used to. On top of that, the end result for those people would be exactly the same as they already have, except now Google would be in Microsofts place.

Thats just stupid. With Microsoft, at least you are the customer and your data is yours. With Google, you're the product and your data is their data. The whole point is to push more advertising on you and manipulate you into spending more money. Awesome.

I don't think that means Microsoft will die completely, but I do think it means they become just another small player as there is no longer any vendor lock-in to their platform.

Awesome, so instead of being locked into desktop apps with 30 years of evolution and growing, we're locked into phone and tablet apps ... on the desktop ... which are still infants made mostly by random people who think installing Eclipse makes them a developer, awesome. Thats my favorite lock-in right there. Lock in and shitty apps made for tiny screens ... on my 27" inch displays.

There is nothing that magically makes this better than just using an OS and skipping the extra layer of crap added by running your tablet app on your desktop. Have you really thought about how silly this actually is? Turn off your fanboy for 15 minutes and think about it. Its a stupid idea that no one is actually going to use for anything other than some very rare instances.

Never before has someones OS runtime layer been a real product on someone elses OS. Java hasn't ruled the world, Android isn't going to magically make that so just because people use it on their phones. Adding another standard on top of existing standards never results in this magical silver bullet that revolutionizes the world and changes everything. Proper design from the bottom up does that.

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[swillden]

If this technology matures to the point that it's stable on every desktop OS, then the OS is reduced is reduced to simply being a platform

Java did that years ago. Notice how it destroyed Microsoft?

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[BarbaraHudson]

Come on, Android can change the layout of widgets, as well as the logic behind them, on everything from phones to HD TVs.

Just grab the "settings" app and see the difference in layout between a phone and a tablet. On the phone, selecting an item brings up an overlay screen of options for that selection. On a tablet, the selection list is displayed on the left, the options on the right.

You can make arbitrarily complex layouts to accommodate different needs on different displays. Same as Windows.

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[Anonymous Coward]

If this technology matures to the point that it's stable on every desktop OS, then the OS is reduced is reduced to simply being a platform for the chrome browser to run on to run Android Apps. That means

1. Developers gear their software to run on Android since that's where all the software and market is. 2. Microsoft becomes irrelevant as the things consumers want are the Android Apps, not the OS.

I don't think that means Microsoft will die completely, but I do think it means they become just another small player as there is no longer any vendor lock-in to their platform.

And since Android apps are basically Java, we are back at what we thought we were finally getting rid of -- running Java apps on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[Mahldcat]

yes....but did Java have all of the millions of apps that were indexed by a single entity, and more importantly made it easy for anybody to access and use?

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[PopeRatzo]

Next time you want tot ake a dick pic, imagine that the pic ened up being posted on a gay porn web site.

Gosh, I'd be honored.

Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed.

[swillden]

yes....but did Java have all of the millions of apps that were indexed by a single entity, and more importantly made it easy for anybody to access and use?

Neither does Android. Oh, there are millions of apps, but most of them are completely uninteresting on a desktop or laptop and the rest won't run well. Oh, there will be apps, over time, but there's no huge number already available, developers are going to have to start more or less from scratch.

The index is new-ish, yes, but I still don't think it's going to provoke the sort of sea change the GGP supposes. If that were all it took, the Chrome store would already be doing it (there's also an index of apps).

No, what's really going to happen is that Microsoft is going to continue its slow, gradual slide into obscurity, unless it finds a way to create a new market for itself (which is likely, frankly, though no one knows what it'll be). Android apps on Windows may even play a role, but a small one. Phones and tablets are becoming the dominant computing platform for the masses, a platform they don't participate in meaningfully, and a combination of web apps, cross-platform toolkits (like Android, but also including Java, their own .NET, Qt and Chrome apps) and maturation of free/open source offerings are breaking their stranglehold on the rest.

Re:Finally a universal binary standard

[Chas]

This is it; write once run anywhere has finally arrived.

Nononono. As always. "Write Once, Beta Everywhere".

Re: Please make this thing useful for development

[loufoque]

Just run Android for x86 if you don't want the overhead of emulating ARM...

neat

[Kkloe]

I have been running andy-android-emulator just so I can have clients like instagram in my desktop instead of having to pull up my phone, if they make this stable enough then one can skip the emulator altogether. I can see the drawback for devs as people will expect the apps to function as good with keyboard and mouse in the future and will have to redo their apps/add that functionality.

Re:Finally a universal binary standard

[guises]

But why would you want to? The interface is completely different.

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[ozmanjusri]

It is not designed for mouse so the result is a complete user frustration.

1. I've used Android apps with an external mouse on my Asus transformer, and found the experience reasonably sensible.
2. Don't forget the "nearly every platform" comment from TFA. Apps aren't currently designed for use with a mouse, but it doesn't have to stay that way. The Android app format is coming close to being the fabled "universal binary", finally giving developers the long-promised write once, run anywhere ability.
3. In light of 2. above, it isn't too hard to imagine a future UI toolkit that can sensibly switch between touch and pointer modes.

Major Desktop OS?

[houghi]

Something. Something. Year of the Linux desktop.

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[segin]

It's worth noting that the Android API already provides methods and identifiers specifically for handling mice and styluses. see http://developer.android.com/r... and http://developer.android.com/r...

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[SpzToid]

http://www.genymotion.com/

"Genymotion, the fastest Android emulator for app testing and presentation."

I used the free version just so I could see acertain app really work (www.flightradar24.com) and was impressed.

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[obarthelemy]

Have you actually tried it ? I've got an Android **desktop**, and it's usable. Most apps understand mouse buttons and wheel; the lack of the usual sensors and touchscreen is only a problem in some games.
Things could be better: I miss keyboard shortcuts, right click for Back is silly, and zooming in/out seems to be up to the OEMs. But overall, it's more than usable.

Re: Please make this thing useful for development

[drinkypoo]

android-x86 is a bit of a dog's breakfast. They only kick out a release image every now and again, everything never works, lots of crashes. The latest 4.4 image is way less stable than the last 4.0 image they put out, and they stopped building nightlies and so did everyone else. It's really quite useless and always has been, because they never actually finish a release. Google kicks out a new version, they say "Ooh, shiny!" and they move on before they actually get the system working reliably or properly. Then you get to deal with all the apps that won't work right on x86 on top of that. It makes far more sense at this point to go ahead and run the emulator.

Re:Finally a universal binary standard

[peragrin]

So what? Apps are already including modified interfaces for various resolutions.
Why not have one app and trim functionality based on screen size. So your 4" phablet gets one interface, your 7" tablet gets a slightly modified version of that. a 10" tablet and laptop gets another.

Windows 9 is supposedly going to do that. tablets will get metro, but laptops and desktops get the old. There is no reason why you can't push the metro interface all the way down to windows phone resolutions on the same device. attach an external monitor and a bluetooth keyboard and presto you have a standard desktop display.

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[ArhcAngel]

(this sound like the great shareware days of the 90s - and we moved on for a reason (tucows et al.))

Millions of people still flock to "shareware" sites like Tucows and Downloads.com (Now a part of the c|net family). If you mean by moving on Tucows main business is now an ISP wholesaler to resellers who need a web presence but don't want to hire an entire web team and running a wildly popular MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) Ting as well as domain registration and services to help a business build an online presence then yes they've moved on.

To keep this post on topic how is this different than Bluestacks? I've been using it forever to run Android apps on my PC. I've heard people pan it for being buggy but I've never had any problems with it.

Re:Finally a universal binary standard

[Alumoi]

Wasn't Java supposed to do just that?

Re: Please make this thing useful for development

[Anne Thwacks]

Ok maybe there is still work to do

Re:I guess we'll just have to consume large volume

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you being modded down for commenting on yet ANOTHER reddit commercial? Don't they know that Slashdot is being absorbed by them?

Candy Crush Saga on the desktop!!

[rjejr]

So I can finally play Candy Crush on my PC ;-) Kidding aside, I wouldnt mind Angry Birds Epic on my PC, and wouldnt this make loads more money for companies like Gung Ho who were raking it in w/ Puzzle and Dragons and now can code once but have everyone with a PC spending money on their games? Seems like win-win to me, IF IF IF it works properly.

Re:Candy Crush Saga on the desktop!!

[ihtoit]

you bring up a very good point, actually. People generally are moving away from the classic beige box and leg cooker, to keyboardless tablets and mobiles. That's cool, technology moves on, etc. But the most common question I hear asked in a bricks-n-mortar store from people shopping around for the latest greatest iWank is "Can I get Facebook on this?". That's it. They want their computer for nothing more than uploading pictures of their dinner, "playing" the dullest "games" I have ever seen in my life, and thread raging at the latest abortion from Simon Cowell. They're not particularly interested in home accounting, writing letters, writing the next best selling book or movie script - they just want to stay in touch with Mom. Folks, what happened to just getting on your fucking bicycle and taking a ride three miles up the road and actually getting some RealFaceTime with members of your own family? I know there was talk in the 1980's about the human species moving to a ccumputerised, virtual existence, but I really didn't think it'd happen this fast. The last step in this nightmarish scenario is uploading your brain to a cloud...

Re:Finally a universal binary standard

[ihtoit]

entirely doable with what I have installed on my laptop: Virtualbox. Set up a VM in service mode, release a port to the LAN, log in and the thing automagically sends a window manager in device native resolution (or whatever resolution I have the window set at - it even dynamically adjusts so I can drag corners to resize and not lose anything). Hell, I can run a client from a PII on a VGA screen and have it not only display but interact with an instance of Windows 7 Ultimate with all its bells and whistles going off at once.

Bluestacks

[Anonymous Coward]

You can already do this using Bluestacks. It's alot better than that terrible emulator that comes with the sdk.

Re:Bluestacks

[buckfeta2014]

Exactly. This is nothing new. Bluestacks and sdk have been around for ages.

Re:Finally a universal binary standard

[BarbaraHudson]

It was, but Sun fragmented Java ME (Micro Edition) so they could get millions in licensing fees from all the different variants of the runtime engine since they were pretty closely tied to each phone's hardware for performance reasons.

It's not like today, when we have quad core phones with oodles of ram for under $200, and tablets breaking the $100 barrier, and we can afford to run a generic runtime.

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Windows 8 wasn't designed with the mouse in mind either, doesn't stop people from using it...

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[davester666]

I hope EA sues the hell out of this guy for using the trademarked name "archon"...just because he capitalized it differently that EA did for their game....

Re:Where's the Android all-in-ones?

[KozmoStevnNaut]

What you're looking for is a Chromebook or Chromebox. Stripped-down, does all the basics really well and the new generation of Tegra K1-based Chromebooks have over 10 hours of battery life.

Google has already shown a couple of Android apps running natively on ChromeOS, and the proof of concept of basically all Android apps running as Chrome apps is another step in that direction.

Re: Please make this thing useful for development

[joemck]

Or if you're okay with it being x86 Android, just install it in VirtualBox or VMWare.

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare they blaspheme the name of the Holy Google. Giver of search results and maps and storage to all of mankind..Blessed be the Stock of the Holy One. Amen.

Really, though. Why do you automatically lash out at this person and accuse them of being an "other"? you sound like a religious zealot. He could very likely be a linux admin, neckbeard and all. Maybe he's an apple fan. Who cares? It's irrelevant to the discussion.

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[phorm]

Indeed. Perhaps the OP has not noted that there are a *LOT* of Android TV/streamer devices out there. Most of those work with a keyboard/mouse (or, preferably, an "air mouse"). I've had no issues using the core Google Apps, Netflix, XBMC-android, etc. Perhaps "Angry Birds" might be a little annoying with a mouse but more of the media-centric stuff works very nicely. As it is I've pretty much migrated my former Linux media box to an Android box that runs Play, Netflix, XBMC, and a few other media apps.

Re:Please make this thing useful for development

[maccodemonkey]

Don't forget the "nearly every platform" comment from TFA. Apps aren't currently designed for use with a mouse, but it doesn't have to stay that way. The Android app format is coming close to being the fabled "universal binary", finally giving developers the long-promised write once, run anywhere ability.

Heh. The dream of the 90s is alive on Slashdot.

It wouldn't be the first. Java and HTML/JavaScript long beat Android to the punch. In fact, HTML/JavaScript does it better. OpenGL ES on Android isn't exactly platform neutral (my Mac doesn't have an ES driver for it's Nvidia/Intel hardware so the best it can do is software rendering, while WebGL is abstracted so it can render it perfectly.)

We can use the lessons from it's forebearers to tell why it won't be adopted in the marketplace as a universal app solution. Both Java and HTML/CSS make universal app deployment technically a reality. For the past 20-ish years I've been able to write a Java app and deploy it on any platform. HTML/CSS run well on both desktop mobile devices as well.

The usability problem that is always run into is that by pretending all platforms are the same, the usability strengths of each platform are ignored. A mouse and pointer is a really really basic example that both iOS and Android can handle, but what about security models? The Android security model, OS X security model, iOS security model, and Windows security models are entirely different. Apple platforms like to give capability access capability by capability, at the time they are accessed. Android doesn't work like that at all, it wants everything up front. So an Android app trying to access my Address Book doesn't at all have the API to do so on my Mac.

Or what about contextual menus? I expect those on a Mac but Android doesn't have them. Macs also draw differently. They expect scrollable content to slow under window sidebars and titlebars. Android doesn't expect that. You can't make an Android app act like it's running natively on a Mac without reflowing all the widgets in the window. And Android apps don't have multiple windows. I expect that on a Mac. Mac applications also have toolbars (as do Windows applications) but Android doesn't even have an API for that. All Mac applications have a re-arrangable toolbar, but Windows doesn't. Mac and Windows computers can have multiple GPUs, which means that Android would need an API to handle a window having to shuffle from one GPU context to another, and I don't think it has that... There are also font layout issues. Both Mac and Windows have different default fonts which could dramatically shift around line spacing, and what text fits where. Mac at least also has contextual definitions when you right click on a word. Will Android apps have that? My Mac apps support QuickLook in the Finder, but there isn't anything like QuickLook under Android to abstract into. I also like searching with Spotlight, but Android apps don't have any Spotlight vendors. Do Android apps ask for my user name and password to do secured operations? Again, Android apps don't have any idea of on demand security, and I really don't want to have to enter my admin username/password every time I launch an Android app. Same thing would apply to UAC.

If you hadn't stopped reading by now, you might be starting to get my point. The reason Java failed to take the desktop world by storm is that not all desktops are the same or even have the same capabilities. Yes, as you suggested, you can go down the road of adding a bunch of APIs to handle all these different scenarios. But then you're back to writing a bunch of code to support a bunch of different platforms. It's right back where you started. Java didn't end up saving time for multi-platform because the dream of writing once and running anywhere was unobtainable for desktop GUI applications, and it still is for the same reasons. It's technically possible, but the same user experience everywhere was unacceptable to users and unworkable. Even Microsoft wasn

Re: Please make this thing useful for development

[drinkypoo]

I could not DISagree with you more. If you have supported hardware (Lenovo x230t here)

My hardware worked okay with their 4.3 release (ASUS EEE 701 4G here) but went into bootloop with 4.4-rc1. The 4.3 release was shit, mind you, but it did boot. You just had to do shit like hit the power button to wake up the lock screen. 4.0.something was the last Android-x86 release I tried which didn't asplode constantly once I got it working.

I'll keep trying every new release, but so far the only usable thing they've kicked out was obsoleted almost immediately.

Now, if it were iOS apps..

[doccus]

Now, if it were iOS apps..THEN it would be news. There's a million different options already for running android apps on a desktop.. OK not a million, but plenty. But still not a single one for iOS apps..