It
was only a matter of time before Google
Play Store began to expand outside of the Android sandbox on Smartphones
and Tablets.
Google
has announced their latest Developer tool, the ARC (App Runtime for Chrome) Welder,
a Google Chrome App that allows persons using
Google Chrome to run Google Android Apps as noted in the article “Google
ARC beta brings Android apps to Windows, Mac and Linux”, published April 2,
2015 By Brad Jones, DigitalTrends.
 |
Thus
Apps run as if on a Google Android smartphone or Tablet without crashing as
explained in the article “Google’s
ARC Beta runs Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac, and Linux”,
published April 1, 2015 6:08pm by Ron Amadeo, Ars
Technica.
What
is ARC Welder anyway? Also, how
did Google achieve this marvel of Programming using theARC Welder?
Google's ARC Reactor -
Google goes Tony Stark with Dalvik VM for Android 4.4 Kitkat
ARC Welder
uses Google Chrome as the sandbox to run your Google Android Apps.
It
mainly supports Apps that run on Google Android 4.4 KitKat as it uses Dalvik VM
and not faster Android Run Time (ART) which Apps made for Google Android 5.0
Lollipop uses. So it's run a bit slower than on your Android Smartphone or
Tablet, but you'll not notice this, being as you'll be awed that you can even run
Android Apps on your Desktop.
What
that means is not only can you run Google Android apps on Google Chromebooks,
but potentially on any Windows, Linux or Apple Mac OS computer running Google
Chrome. This as the ARC
Welder App is running a technology called Native Client
(NaCL), a Google Chrome sandboxing technology that allows Chrome apps and plug-in
to take full advantage of the system's CPU and GPU.
Thus
a Developer merely needs to have their App tested and re-packaged in an APK
(Android Application Package) format and submitted to the Chrome Web Store as explained in
the Getting Started with ARC Welder webpage on
the Google Chrome Developer website.
 |
However,
the exciting bit is that this is akin to running an APK using BlueStacks App Player
or the Andy App Player as described in
my blog article
entitled “How
to use the Andy App Player to play Android Apps on PC or Laptop - Android and
Windows Live-OS swappable Project looks more possible”
ANYONE
with a regular computer user can download ANY APK and run them using the ARC Welder
as explained in the article “You
can now run Android apps on a Mac or PC with Google Chrome”, published
April 3, 2015 04:37 am By Tom Warren , The
Verge.
This
as there is really no official process for porting Android Apps to run viaARC Welder.
In
fact, Developer submitting their APK files to the Chrome Web Store to become ARC Welder
compatible is merely to make it easy on End users, as many End Users may be
wary of installing software to run Google Android Apps, especially as it’s so
easy on their smartphones and Tablets.
ARC Welder App allows
Android Apps to run on Windows PC - How ARC opens up Google Android Apps to the
World
The
ARC
Welder App is an improvement on the ARC (App Runtime for Chrome) launched
back in September 2014 as announced in their Press Release entitled “First
set of Android apps coming to a Chromebook near you”, published September
11, 2014, Google Chrome blog
 |
ARC Welder
also allows Google Chomebooks, basically stripped down Macbook-esque Laptops
running Google Chrome Browser as its OS (Operating System) to run Google
Android Apps directly from the Google
Play Store as explained in the article “Android
apps like Vine, Evernote, others arrive on Chromebooks, Google says”,
published September 11, 2014 By Konrad Krawczyk, DigitalTrends.
At
the time, only four (4) Apps could run on Google Chromebooks using ARC Welder on a per-developer
work basis as noted in the article “Chromebooks
land first batch of Android apps”, published September 11, 2014 1:06 PM PDT
by Seth Rosenblatt, CNET News but that range
soon expanded rapidly to basically include almost any app packaged in APK you
can download in the Google Play
Store.
Benefits of ARC Welders
– Google Developers Write once Run Anywhere with own App Stores
This
developement was probably why Google Chromebooks, which account for 1% of the
PC market, are so popular with the K-12 School System in the US of A, at least
according to analyst IDC as noted in my blog article
entitled “IDC
Stats say Google Chromebooks dominates U.S. K-12 School System - 1 TB Free
Google Drive as Microsoft HP Stream and 12.9-inch Apple iPad in 2015”.
Kids
can now run their favourite Google Android apps not only on their smartphones
and Tablets, but also their Google Chromebooks, Windows PC, Mac OS and Linux
Computers. Only device running Apple iOS cannot run ARC Welder.
This
now puts Apple iOS in a spot.
Effectively,
Developers, once they’re registered with Google as Developers, can write their
Apps and package (or repackage as the case may be) them as APK’s and have it
run anywhere, be it as an officially submitted APK to the Chrome Web Store or downloaded
from your Developer website.
The
marketing and advertising opportunities are endless, as you can basically be
your own App Store, making revenue from advertising or any other means DIRECTLY
from the end-user downloading your APK’s.
Still,
many Bugs are still left to be sorted
out, such as the inability to run multiple apps and some apps not being
properly emulated by ARC Welder as noted in the article “Here's
how to run Android apps on Chrome with Google's new tool”, published Apr 3,
2015 by Mark Hachman, PC World.
The
closest thing they have to running iOS apps on any other system other than
Apple Mac, iPhones, iPads and the rest of the Apple family is Apple iCloud along
with the Apple iWorks Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps as noted in my MICO Wars blog article
entitled “Apple
iWorks for iCloud Beta now Free for Windows, Linux OS and Google Chrome OS”.
Apple
has some serious catching up to do……
Here’s
the link:
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