How to Run Android Apps on a PC

by Sam Dean - Feb. 06, 2012Comments (1)

As Android continues to win market share despite being a very young mobile operating system, the number of applications for it is rising too. Many of us have favorite apps, but we use them almost exclusively on smartphones or tablets. Did you know that you can also run Android apps on your desktop computer or laptop? BlueStacks App Player has been available for some time in an alpha version, and is about to go into a beta version, which you can sign up to test. We covered this application once before, when it was very young, in this post. It lets users run Android apps on their computers, although it has some limitations.

It should be noted that BlueStacks App Player is just heading into beta testing at this point. As a download for Windows (there are versions for other operating systems in the works), it comes with a pre-installed set of Android apps and you can add many others, but not every Android app.

Since we last coverd BlueStacks App Player, it won a "Best of CES 2012" award at the Consumer Electronics Show. So how does BlueStacks achieve running Android apps on a computer? The apps run in a virtualized instance of Android.You can get a feel for how this works in a video here. You can also watch an onstage demo of the platform here.

Interestingly, BlueStacks has been talking about the promise of its Android player platform in enterprises. While not all enterprises view Android as a trusted platform, some do, and BlueStacks could conceivably create a bridge between users' Android smartphones and their PCs.

If you're interested in the idea of using Android apps on your laptop or desktop computer, sign up to test the BlueStacks beta. It's coming this month.