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Is there a simple and user friendly (preferably open-source) way to run Android apps (through either play store or aurora/fdroid) on a desktop (mac/linux/windows)?

There are some ways to run it in Android simulator, but the architecture usually does not match, so it does not run well and running Android simulator is not very user friendly. I mean more like "double click and run this app" rather than starting Android studio, creating a VM profile and running it in a phone.

It would look similarly to how you can run iPhone and iPad apps on a Mac. Just install from app store, there is an app and it opens in its own window and just works.

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Discussion

AJ Nobody ⚡🏴 2y ago

I spent a week or so looking. Came up empty.

Google Dev kit emulator didn't run well/easy.

Other emulators had malware or unsolicited software.

Honza Pobořil 2y ago

It cannot be so simple like in macOS because HW and OS is the same, just different window manager.

Juraj 2y ago

Pixelbooks do it the same for android and the hw is not the same. But I do not want a pixelbook. I think qemu can handle hardware, why is there not a nice user-friendly emulator?

Sounds like a good idea.

Pj 2y ago

You can run android-x86.org on a PC or in a VM.

Juraj 2y ago

That does not run non-x86 apps. Most apps in stores are not compiled for x86.

Pj 2y ago

That's surprising - the apps I tried worked fine. Maybe I'm just lucky.

Juraj 2y ago

Many do work (esp. by Google), yet many don't