6 ms·

AMD deal brings Android apps to Windows 8

37 points by HarveyKandola 14y ago

electrichead 14y ago
Would the apps be able to run as background processes? It's a really good move by AMD. One that RIM probably should have at least considered (I couldn't resist bringing them up)
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  As far as I'm aware BB10 is compatible with a large subset of Android applications.
  - robotnixon 14y ago
    This is somewhat true. An Android app won't install and run on BB10 but developers can repackage an Android app fairly easily and offer it in the BB store.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  RIM tried to let Android apps run on BB. They had a lot of restrictions though, and I think the project ended up a flop. Not sure, though, is it still active? They had a lot a restrictions on which apps could be run, which Android features could be used, etc, IIRC.
mtgx 14y ago
Why do all these articles only mention Windows 8? I believe AMD said it works on Windows 7, too. Does it make the headline more compelling if it just says Windows 8? Also, I imagine that if this is happening, most developers who already have an Android app won't bother to create a Windows 8 one, too.
- dpark 14y ago
  Most Windows 8 devices will have Intel, not AMD chips. Another chunk will ship with ARM, also not AMD. I seriously doubt that this will have any significant effect on Windows 8 app development (unless Intel also gets on board with this). As for why they mention Windows 8, that's because so few people have touchscreens for their a Windows 7 devices. Fruit Ninja with a mouse is probably not too fun.
- lnanek2 14y ago
  I never found BlueStacks very compelling on my desktop or laptop. Tablets or NetBooks might make it more than a fun tech demo, though. Windows 8 is trying to cover more of those, especially the WinRT version.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
pjmlp 14y ago
What all these announcements forget to mention, is that they only work with DalvikVM pure applications. NDK based applicatons need to be recompiled, as any native code language making use of it. So forget about most games.
- manojlds 14y ago
  I think games are pretty much covered on a Windows machine.
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    The point wasn't about games in general, rather about ports of Android games.
- fidotron 14y ago
  They don't mention it because they do handle NDK games.
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    How do you know that? How are they handling NDK games that were only compiled for ARM cpus? Do they JIT translate assembly code, like Sun used to do in the 90's in their SPARC stations?
    - akgerber 14y ago
      If AMD is optimizing their processors for the purpose, they could well put a full ARM core (since they don't take up much die area), or just add specialized instructions to make it easier to translate ARM assembly. It seems like they are adding an ARM A5 core to some chips. This article speculates it's just for security, but it's a few months old: http://semiaccurate.com/2012/06/13/amd-puts-arm-cortex-a5-cores-in-its-cpus/ http://semiaccurate.com/2012/06/13/amd-puts-arm-cortex-a5-co...
    - dschuler 14y ago
      The very first releases of the NDK only supported ARMv6, but now it also supports ARMv7, x86, and MIPS. I actually compile my code for all 4 architectures, and end up with .so binaries in my APK: lib/armeabi/libpuddle_drops.so lib/armeabi-v7a/libpuddle_drops.so lib/mips/libpuddle_drops.so lib/x86/libpuddle_drops.so This really takes no effort on my part, except to specify APP_ABI := all in one of the build files. The system where the app is installed picks the preferred (or compatible) library automatically, which usually means ARMv7 with a fall-back to ARMv6 on low-end phones.
manojlds 14y ago
Is the implication that Bluestack won't work on Intel chips, if only at a lesser efficiency?
- Scene_Cast2 14y ago
  It looks like AMD is just putting a pretty wrapper around Bluestacks and shipping that. The wrapper is possibly going to be limited to AMD / Win8 systems, but Bluestacks certainly isn't.
Osiris 14y ago
I downloaded and installed the application yesterday and got caught playing some silly tower defense game for an hour when I should have been working. From the time I was playing around with it, it seems to work really well. I didn't notice any weirdness with the applications. They provide their own "store", so my guess is that they've vetted certain apps to make sure they work properly. Once thing that I did notice is that the application is using the default program icon from Visual Studio (the one with the three colored boxes). All that work and they can't put in their own application icon?

37 points by HarveyKandola 14y ago

Would the apps be able to run as background processes? It's a really good move by AMD. One that RIM probably should have at least considered (I couldn't resist bringing them up)

bryanlarsen 14y ago
As far as I'm aware BB10 is compatible with a large subset of Android applications.
- robotnixon 14y ago
  This is somewhat true. An Android app won't install and run on BB10 but developers can repackage an Android app fairly easily and offer it in the BB store.
cryptoz 14y ago
RIM tried to let Android apps run on BB. They had a lot of restrictions though, and I think the project ended up a flop. Not sure, though, is it still active? They had a lot a restrictions on which apps could be run, which Android features could be used, etc, IIRC.

mtgx 14y ago

Why do all these articles only mention Windows 8? I believe AMD said it works on Windows 7, too. Does it make the headline more compelling if it just says Windows 8? Also, I imagine that if this is happening, most developers who already have an Android app won't bother to create a Windows 8 one, too.

dpark 14y ago
Most Windows 8 devices will have Intel, not AMD chips. Another chunk will ship with ARM, also not AMD. I seriously doubt that this will have any significant effect on Windows 8 app development (unless Intel also gets on board with this). As for why they mention Windows 8, that's because so few people have touchscreens for their a Windows 7 devices. Fruit Ninja with a mouse is probably not too fun.
lnanek2 14y ago
I never found BlueStacks very compelling on my desktop or laptop. Tablets or NetBooks might make it more than a fun tech demo, though. Windows 8 is trying to cover more of those, especially the WinRT version.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

pjmlp 14y ago

What all these announcements forget to mention, is that they only work with DalvikVM pure applications. NDK based applicatons need to be recompiled, as any native code language making use of it. So forget about most games.

manojlds 14y ago
I think games are pretty much covered on a Windows machine.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  The point wasn't about games in general, rather about ports of Android games.
fidotron 14y ago
They don't mention it because they do handle NDK games.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  How do you know that? How are they handling NDK games that were only compiled for ARM cpus? Do they JIT translate assembly code, like Sun used to do in the 90's in their SPARC stations?
  - akgerber 14y ago
    If AMD is optimizing their processors for the purpose, they could well put a full ARM core (since they don't take up much die area), or just add specialized instructions to make it easier to translate ARM assembly. It seems like they are adding an ARM A5 core to some chips. This article speculates it's just for security, but it's a few months old: http://semiaccurate.com/2012/06/13/amd-puts-arm-cortex-a5-cores-in-its-cpus/ http://semiaccurate.com/2012/06/13/amd-puts-arm-cortex-a5-co...
  - dschuler 14y ago
    The very first releases of the NDK only supported ARMv6, but now it also supports ARMv7, x86, and MIPS. I actually compile my code for all 4 architectures, and end up with .so binaries in my APK: lib/armeabi/libpuddle_drops.so lib/armeabi-v7a/libpuddle_drops.so lib/mips/libpuddle_drops.so lib/x86/libpuddle_drops.so This really takes no effort on my part, except to specify APP_ABI := all in one of the build files. The system where the app is installed picks the preferred (or compatible) library automatically, which usually means ARMv7 with a fall-back to ARMv6 on low-end phones.

manojlds 14y ago

Is the implication that Bluestack won't work on Intel chips, if only at a lesser efficiency?

Scene_Cast2 14y ago
It looks like AMD is just putting a pretty wrapper around Bluestacks and shipping that. The wrapper is possibly going to be limited to AMD / Win8 systems, but Bluestacks certainly isn't.

Osiris 14y ago

I downloaded and installed the application yesterday and got caught playing some silly tower defense game for an hour when I should have been working. From the time I was playing around with it, it seems to work really well. I didn't notice any weirdness with the applications. They provide their own "store", so my guess is that they've vetted certain apps to make sure they work properly. Once thing that I did notice is that the application is using the default program icon from Visual Studio (the one with the three colored boxes). All that work and they can't put in their own application icon?