Bluestacks for Surface Pro - Play Any Android App

AdelphiaX · Feb 12, 2013, 11:26 AM

Bluestacks available ----

Play any Android App on your Windows 8 boxes. Optimized for the Surface Pro.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/12/b...ndroid-app-pl/

This should be interesting...... Love for some first hand feedback

Zero · Feb 12, 2013, 04:40 PM

Basically just a sandboxed Android emulator running within the Windows environment. It's hard to navigate on my Win8 laptop and doesn't integrate with Modern UI or anything. App selection is also pretty limited from what I can see, don't know what the big deal is.

JohnEJohn · Feb 12, 2013, 05:52 PM

Good news for me, been awaiting this for while.

Even if it doesn't catch on it will increase my user base depending upon the app/game released with minimal effort on my part.

Unfortunately I'm almost exclusivly developing apps that mostly rely upon internal sensors etc but I have had my eye on this for a year or so.

Also, who knows where the hardware is headed...

jimmt · Feb 12, 2013, 05:53 PM

I think its pretty cool. I have mention this before but windows 8 has brought new life to my HP Tm2t and having this just makes it even more fun to own. I was able to install stuff from Google play store and so far apps run great. Very impressed. Synced with my existing google play account from my Android days too. Been playing Angry Birds space with really good perf.

AdelphiaX · Feb 12, 2013, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zero

Basically just a sandboxed Android emulator running within the Windows environment. It's hard to navigate on my Win8 laptop and doesn't integrate with Modern UI or anything. App selection is also pretty limited from what I can see, don't know what the big deal is.

See below....

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmt

I think its pretty cool. I have mention this before but windows 8 has brought new life to my HP Tm2t and having this just makes it even more fun to own. I was able to install stuff from Google play store and so far apps run great. Very impressed. Synced with my existing google play account from my Android days too. Been playing Angry Birds space with really good perf.

Apparently he got stuff out of the Google Play store? They advertise all Android apps can run on it.

Zero · Feb 12, 2013, 08:15 PM

Hmm my bad, it looks like it was having connection issues. Nothing was popping up when it was doing the app store search but now it is. Gonna check out Bard's Tale in a bit

mabran · Feb 12, 2013, 09:09 PM

tried this a few months back when AMD advertised it and it wouldn't run half my app purchases so I uninstalled.

Zero · Feb 12, 2013, 09:22 PM

Fixed storage size really cripples usability. Can't even download Bard's Tale HD texture pack because it's too big. 4GB is what it comes with and no option to change it.

Edit: and Bard's Tale doesn't seem to run at all.

AdelphiaX · Feb 12, 2013, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zero

Fixed storage size really cripples usability. Can't even download Bard's Tale HD texture pack because it's too big. 4GB is what it comes with and no option to change it.

Edit: and Bard's Tale doesn't seem to run at all.

Interesting, is this 4gig overall for bluestacks app storage?

Zero · Feb 12, 2013, 11:26 PM

Seems like it. There was a hack to change it at xda but I can't be bothered to try it out. I don't think it'll help anyhow since the game I'm trying to launch just force quits.

wc326 · Feb 12, 2013, 11:44 PM

installing it right now on my acer w700

i just turned my WIn 8 tablet into a android tablet. so not bad at all

this apps has so much potential, however, so many apps are not working at all. altho i must say touch screen tablet works perfectly on it

ViN86 · Feb 19, 2013, 11:41 AM

I just installed this in Win7. There are some really useful apps that I wanted to use in Windows, and they work great in Bluestacks.

**Trunks0** · Feb 19, 2013, 06:49 PM

Excellent... now just release a version for RT

Rakeesh · Feb 20, 2013, 04:00 AM

How is this different from the official android emulator that google makes?

Anyways this is good for android but might hurt W8. Basically you write your app for android and then you don't need to worry about W8. For this exact reason, Google wrote a framework to make it easy for android developers to port their apps to iOS.

jimmt · Feb 20, 2013, 05:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rakeesh

How is this different from the official android emulator that google makes?

Anyways this is good for android but might hurt W8. Basically you write your app for android and then you don't need to worry about W8. For this exact reason, Google wrote a framework to make it easy for android developers to port their apps to iOS.

I don't see this hurting Windows 8. One it doesn't flow well with metro. All apps run on the desktop. Also, not as fast as native Windows 8 HTML5 apps.

**Trunks0** · Feb 20, 2013, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rakeesh

How is this different from the official android emulator that google makes?

Anyways this is good for android but might hurt W8. Basically you write your app for android and then you don't need to worry about W8. For this exact reason, Google wrote a framework to make it easy for android developers to port their apps to iOS.

Bluestacks is more like WINE than a traditional emulator. Which basically means it is faster.

Rakeesh · Feb 20, 2013, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmt

I don't see this hurting Windows 8. One it doesn't flow well with metro. All apps run on the desktop. Also, not as fast as native Windows 8 HTML5 apps.

Exactly. Most developers are pretty lazy about this sort of thing. They'll just create an android app and then just release a standalone apk for use on an emulator if the windows users want it.

There are numerous problems with porting apps to RT. For one, basically every platform out there uses BSD sockets (including Win32,) except RT which uses basically a newer version of winsock (which if you recall from back in the day, microsoft discarded it because it was riddled with problems.) Everything except RT supports at least some flavor of OpenGL. While RT has a DX11 style API, only the DX9 feature set is supported.

Those only scratch the surface, and they are by far the most common and most critical API's any developer needs to target for any mobile app. It is relatively easy to port apps between blackberry, android, and ios, but porting to RT is a whole other can of worms.

It's also for these exact reasons that most developers don't do native apps for RT, rather the apps they release are simply an overlay for a web page.

So what do we do if we need functions that aren't doable with HTML/CSS/ECMA? Easy, target android. Sure the app won't be as nice as native RT ones, but it'll be good enough to get a return on investment, whereas doing a full port probably requires a rewrite. Since only 3% (and declining) of the end user market uses WP, there's not any sense in doing a full port.

Rakeesh · Feb 20, 2013, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trunks0

Bluestacks is more like WINE than a traditional emulator. Which basically means it is faster.

Then that would rule out native ARM code in addition to a number of hardware features present on android but not on RT devices.

Feb 12, 2013, 11:26 AM	#1	Advertisement (Guests Only) Login or Register to remove this ad
AdelphiaX Radeon Caribbean Islands Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 4,690	Bluestacks for Surface Pro - Play Any Android App Bluestacks available ---- Play any Android App on your Windows 8 boxes. Optimized for the Surface Pro. http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/12/b...ndroid-app-pl/ This should be interesting...... Love for some first hand feedback __________________ I was banned from P&R because I refer to it as an echo chamber. Echo Chamber - "an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered." This is considered trolling and a personal attack according to Curio. FYI in case you decide to step in there. I wonder if the definition of irony is known...

Feb 12, 2013, 04:40 PM	#2
Zero Sass hole Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 38,815	Basically just a sandboxed Android emulator running within the Windows environment. It's hard to navigate on my Win8 laptop and doesn't integrate with Modern UI or anything. App selection is also pretty limited from what I can see, don't know what the big deal is. __________________ "Hi, please refrain from telling other forum members to "Go eat a buffet of dicks." in the future. Thank you. Regards, mad"

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Feb 12, 2013, 05:53 PM	#4
jimmt Trumpification Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Mississippi Posts: 17,610	I think its pretty cool. I have mention this before but windows 8 has brought new life to my HP Tm2t and having this just makes it even more fun to own. I was able to install stuff from Google play store and so far apps run great. Very impressed. Synced with my existing google play account from my Android days too. Been playing Angry Birds space with really good perf. __________________ Plex / Steam Machine / Hyper-V MSI Gaming B350 Tomahawk \|Ryzen R5 2600 \|32GB DDR4 DRAM 2400\|MSI 3060Ti VENTUS 2X \|19TB NVMe/SDD/HDD \|Windows 11 Pro Laptop Dell Inspiron 7577 \| Intel i7-7700HQ \|16GB DDR 4 DRAM 2400 \|Nvidia 1060 6GB \|3TB NVMe/SDD \|Fedora 35 VR Oculus Quest 2 / PSVR Consoles SteamDeck\|Switch\|WiiU\|Wii\|Gamecube\|New 3DS XL\|DS\|GBA\|N64\|SNES\|NES\|XBOX\|XBOX360\|XBOXSeries\|PS1\|PS2\|PS3\|PS4\|Vita\|PSP\|DreamCast\|Saturn\|Genesis Classical Liberalism: A political ideology and a branch of liberalism which advocates civil liberties, private property, and political freedom with representative democracy under the rule of law. Strong emphasizes economic freedom and the individual over the collective.

Feb 12, 2013, 05:52 PM	#3
JohnEJohn Diplomatic Impunity Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: All hail king Dave, ruler of all Manchesville Posts: 7,646	Good news for me, been awaiting this for while. Even if it doesn't catch on it will increase my user base depending upon the app/game released with minimal effort on my part. Unfortunately I'm almost exclusivly developing apps that mostly rely upon internal sensors etc but I have had my eye on this for a year or so. Also, who knows where the hardware is headed...

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Feb 12, 2013, 08:15 PM	#6
Zero Sass hole Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 38,815	Hmm my bad, it looks like it was having connection issues. Nothing was popping up when it was doing the app store search but now it is. Gonna check out Bard's Tale in a bit __________________ "Hi, please refrain from telling other forum members to "Go eat a buffet of dicks." in the future. Thank you. Regards, mad"

Feb 12, 2013, 09:09 PM	#7
mabran Wrigley Field Is A Pit Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: chicago Posts: 4,760	tried this a few months back when AMD advertised it and it wouldn't run half my app purchases so I uninstalled. __________________ system spec: DA-GOODS FX [email protected] , 8GB X4 crucial 1666, X-Fire Radeon 7970 3GB X2, ASUS Sabertooth 990FX r2.0, 2x Samsung 830 128GB (boot drive) 2X 1TB Samsung HE103UJ SATA HD's, Windows 8 Pro. system spec: HYPER-V Phenom II 1090T , 8GB X4 Crucial 1666, Samsung SATA Dual Layer Burner, 5x 1TB Samsung HE103UJ SATA HD's, Windows Server 2008 R2

Feb 12, 2013, 09:22 PM	#8
Zero Sass hole Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 38,815	Fixed storage size really cripples usability. Can't even download Bard's Tale HD texture pack because it's too big. 4GB is what it comes with and no option to change it. Edit: and Bard's Tale doesn't seem to run at all. __________________ "Hi, please refrain from telling other forum members to "Go eat a buffet of dicks." in the future. Thank you. Regards, mad" Last edited by Zero : Feb 12, 2013 at 09:37 PM.

Feb 12, 2013, 11:26 PM	#10
Zero Sass hole Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 38,815	Seems like it. There was a hack to change it at xda but I can't be bothered to try it out. I don't think it'll help anyhow since the game I'm trying to launch just force quits. __________________ "Hi, please refrain from telling other forum members to "Go eat a buffet of dicks." in the future. Thank you. Regards, mad"

Feb 12, 2013, 11:44 PM	#11
wc326 Radeon Arctic Islands Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 7,306	installing it right now on my acer w700 i just turned my WIn 8 tablet into a android tablet. so not bad at all this apps has so much potential, however, so many apps are not working at all. altho i must say touch screen tablet works perfectly on it __________________ CS:S Office Server IP: 66.151.138.37:27015 http://sc2sig.com/s/sea/91428-1.png Last edited by wc326 : Feb 13, 2013 at 01:06 AM.

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Feb 19, 2013, 11:41 AM	#12
ViN86 Drinking your milkshake Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Boston Posts: 3,186	I just installed this in Win7. There are some really useful apps that I wanted to use in Windows, and they work great in Bluestacks. __________________ Intel i7-5820K ∙ Asus X99-A ∙ Crucial 4x4GB DDR4-2400 ∙ EVGA GTX1080 ∙ Samsung 840 EVO 250GB ∙ ASUS PG279Q + Dell U2713HM ∙ Corsair HX850 ∙ Win10/Ubuntu16 \| Xbox One Lenovo T470p ∙ Intel i7-7700HQ ∙ Nvidia 940MX ∙ 2x8GB DDR4-2400 ∙ Samsung 850 EVO 500GB/ZTC M.2 2242 256GB ∙ 1440p IPS ∙ Win10/Ubuntu16

Feb 19, 2013, 06:49 PM	#13
Trunks0 Keeping an open mind Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Vancouver, B.C., Canada Posts: 21,402	Excellent... now just release a version for RT __________________ -Trunks0 not speaking for all and if I am wrong I never said it. (plz note that is meant as a joke) System: Asus TUF Gaming X570-Pro - AMD Ryzen 7 5800x - Noctua NH-D15S chromax.Black - 32gb of G.Skill Trident Z NEO - Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD±RW - Samsung 850 Evo 250Gib - 4TiB Seagate - XFX MERC 308 Radeon RX 6600XT - Creative AE-5 Plus - Windows 10 64-bit

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Feb 20, 2013, 04:00 AM	#14
Rakeesh Rustacean Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: BFE Posts: 1,295	How is this different from the official android emulator that google makes? Anyways this is good for android but might hurt W8. Basically you write your app for android and then you don't need to worry about W8. For this exact reason, Google wrote a framework to make it easy for android developers to port their apps to iOS. __________________ Third kidney installed 12/2/2017, cadaverous donor.

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