Want to start Android apps on your PC? This worked for a long time only on computers with the Google Android operating system and Chromebook Chromebooks. But even under Windows, Android apps are now running. In addition to various emulators, the search engine giant with Arc Welder has made an App Runtime available to launch Android apps on Google Chrome. However, Arc Welder is an early version that is not yet fully operational. It is intended to help developers test apps on the computer before transferring them to an Android device. For more information about the app and developer tools, visit the Chrome blog.
ARChon Runtime brings Android apps to Windows, OS X and Linux
In the Open Source area, however, there has been an alternative to Arc Welder for some time now. With the ARChon Runtime, the launch of Android apps on the desktop in Google Chrome (download) is possible. Version 38 or higher of the Google browser is required to install and use the runtime environment. Compatible is the ARChon Runtime with Windows, OS X and Linux.
Prepare Chrome to use Android apps
We explain step by step how to use Android apps on the PC
Play Android Apps for Chrome on your PC
Android apps are available as APK packages on the Google Play Store. In this form, they can not be used in the runtime environment. They must be unpacked and prepared from the APK file. The easiest way to prepare Android apps is to use a special app on the Android phone or tablet
Download and launch Android apps in Chrome
An important note: There are restrictions when selecting Android apps in Chrome. All programs that use special functions of a smartphone or tablet do not work, or only to a limited extent. These include access to GPS, motion sensors, or built-in cameras. For this reason, all photo or video apps with access to the phone camera do not work on the desktop. So far, there is no way to integrate a webcam connected to the computer into the converted apps.
After downloading a prepared Android app, unzip the zip archive. This is the Google Chrome readable app. The manifest.json file contains the description and the settings. In addition, you will see an HTML file for the display, an icon and the subdirectories with the app data.
To download and launch the Android app in the Chrome browser
Use the mouse to move the wiping movements on the screen of the mobile device and navigate in the app. The key combination [Ctrl + Esc] opens a possible option menu for the app
Note: In Windows 8.1, the key combination [Ctrl + Esc] does not work because this shortcut is reserved for Windows. It switches to the operating system's tiling interface to the Windows apps.
No comments:
Post a Comment