Google’s ARC Now Runs Android Apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac, and Linux

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/04/googles-arc-opens-up-to-developers-runs-android-apps-on-most-desktop-oses/

by ismavis • 11 years ago

350 132 11 years ago

PirateDave• 11 years ago

Coming from OSX development, I read this as "Google's Automatic Reference Counting" and was thinking that it would be pretty sweet.

nickbauman• 11 years ago

I read it as ART, which would be insanely great as well.

dmitryskiba• 11 years ago

I'm working on bringing ART to OSX, see https://github.com/DmitrySkiba/ARTPart

rodgerd• 11 years ago

I thought it was a caching mechanism for a moment (ZFS).

on_and_off3• 11 years ago

That would probably be very sweet indeed :) . Android's GC is constantly improving but I just don't know if it will hit the point where it is entirely invisible for a reasonably coded app (ie if you create heavy objects during each onDraw cycle, it is your fault and would result in shitty performances with any OS). ARC sounds like an interesting way to do GC. From my limited understanding, the reference counting adds a non-null cost but it looks like a good trade-in against unpredictable GC pauses.

msoad• 11 years ago

"Write once, run everywhere" is the web applications promise. Unfortunately we have a lot of work to do to make web applications comparable to native apps.

lucio• 11 years ago

"Write once, run anywhere" was Sun's slogan for Java.

dmix• 11 years ago

Google's following through on that lofty goal in a reasonable way. Assuming one uses their product lines.

Too bad its still Java though :p (with many advances in sandboxing and security), but I guess Google/Android didn't really have much of an option back then and I'm honestly not sure what would be the better choice now.

pjbrunet• 11 years ago

As long as you didn't need a user interface :-) Back then, you were lucky to get any Applet working without crashing the browser. From what I remember, GD was pretty much the only way to draw anything besides ASCII art. Oh and that Macromedia... shudders

rimantas• 11 years ago

Does "everywhere" include e.g. Firefox? Also, no, you don't have to make web applications comparable to native apps. At all. Just make native.

phubbard• 11 years ago

Looking forward to porting my FOSS newsreader over. Nice work, this.

noteloop• 11 years ago

VLC is coming to Chrome OS soon thanks to ARC. Anandtech has tried out the beta version and it is coming along nicely. http://www.anandtech.com/show/9082/the-chromebook-pixel-2015...

gitah• 11 years ago

If only Apple will open up iOS a bit so Google can port this over...

mintplant• 11 years ago

That could have downsides for both companies.

a) Android becomes the "write once, run anywhere" platform, attracting developers away from native iOS development.

b) Android loses app exclusivity that pulled/locked users into the platform.

jessaustin• 11 years ago

b) Android loses app exclusivity that pulled/locked users into the platform.

Was that ever a thing? I can think of apps that had this effect for iOS, but did it ever work in the opposite direction? I got Android because it's less expensive...

robmcm3• 11 years ago

This already exists, it's called AIR. However it's a double edged sword.

akhilcacharya• 11 years ago

The only issue is having a unified design system that is optimized for larger-screen, mouse and keyboard devices.

mrmondo• 11 years ago

Just when I thought I'd rid myself of Java...

ianlevesque• 11 years ago

Oh don't worry, Dalvik/ART is completely different from Java, at least for legal purposes.

Zigurd2• 11 years ago

Neither run Java bytecode. They happen to have Java semantics. But they are one (Dalvik) or two (ART) steps removed. Once your Android toolchain has produced Java bytecode, it is translated to Dalvik bytecode before being packaged. Then it might, or might not (pre-ART systems), get translated to native code before being run. And, depending again on version, might get JIT compiled, or not.

Once can take advantage of this in interesting ways. If you are Myriad and you have a Java(tm) runtime for mobile devices, you can skip (or reverse) the Dalvik bytecode translation and run Android apps in your runtime. At which point Oracle sues your ass, and the settlement is confidential. You can see this approach at work in the Jolla handset.

yulaow• 11 years ago

I think that in the medium/long run google will, at least, add a new language officially supported and a bit more modern that the pseudo-java5 they are using right now. I mean something like what apple made with swift. Also considering google is already working on Go and Dart, there could be already something in preparation related to them.

wvenable4• 11 years ago

I hope they go with C#.

tomjen32• 11 years ago

Presumably you could use any language that targets the JVM, since the code could be further compiled down to ARC.

That leaves things like Scala, Kotlin, Grovy, etc.

drvortex• 11 years ago

I have to admit that this is a brilliant move by Google. In one sweep, they have put the might of the formidable Android ecosystem behind ChromeOS. Well done. Chrome OS is instantly comparable to Linux and Windows if it can run native apps.

lern_too_spel• 11 years ago

Chrome OS has been able to run native apps via NACL for a while. This just makes porting automagic for a certain category of apps (Android).

It remains to be seen if more Chrome OS devices will come with touch screens or if app developers will modify their apps to work well without them.

cwyers4• 11 years ago

Chrome OS is instantly comparable to Linux and Windows if it can run native apps.

Windows and Linux have many, many more applications that are meant for trackpad-and-keyboard-with-'large'-screen interaction. Adding phone and tablet apps to ChromeOS doesn't make it instantly comparable to Linux and Windows.

alttab• 11 years ago

"One sweep" and "instantly" are flamboyant at best. There is a long way to go before running android apps on desktops is the norm. Sure, some run Android emulators but its for special cases.

rifung2• 11 years ago

This seems technologically awesome, but I don't really know how useful this will be presently to everyday people. I can't really think of any Android apps people would want to run on their computer.

skeoh• 11 years ago

Consider the inverse situation. I can now write PC apps which will run on your Android.

ninjayi• 11 years ago

I would love to be able to continuous most apps on my computer once I am using one, instead of picking up the phone and drain its battery. Running the apps on computer is the first step.

MarkMc8• 11 years ago

That's because in most cases the app functionality is duplicated on the desktop, either as a web app or native desktop app. On my phone for example such apps include Gmail, Skype, Kindle, The Economist, Google Calendar, YouTube, my banking app, Facebook, Spotify, Photos, Maps.

But in future the simplest way for a developer to provide the same functionality on both desktop and Android smartphone will be to create a single Android app.

ekianjo• 11 years ago

Chrome OS is instantly comparable to Linux and Windows if it can run native apps.

Oh, because if you add an OS made for touch/small screens on a notebook equipped with a keyboard, that immediately makes it as good as regular desktop OS ?

hahainternet2• 11 years ago

Android apps typically work quite well windowed, and given that Android tablet netbooks were a thing for a while: http://www.asus.com/uk/Tablets/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/ you'd be surprised how good they can be.

IkmoIkmo3• 11 years ago

Well let's be clear on one thing, what's the benefit of a desktop over mobile? Usually we say productivity.

Editing photos, video, text, is all less productive, slower, less capable, more superficial on mobile. Adding an instagram filter is kind of iconic for mobile's productivity factor in my opinion.

So is ChromeOS suddenly comparable to desktops if it can run mobile-productivity software? Of course not. Far from it.

This may change as we're seeing mobile/laptop blur a bit (iPad Pro with force touch, a stylus and USB ports for externals, 12" Macbook with Intel Core M processor, for example. Or any of the 2-in-1s, the MS Surface etc). Once we see Mobile software running on Laptops, and see Tablets equipped with a keyboard/stylus, converging around the 11" form factor, with ever improving mobile chips, then we'll probably see more 'real' productivity software.

But it's a bit too soon to call ChromeOS comparable all of a sudden. It's a great move, though. I remember you couldn't/can't even run Skype on ChromeOS. Soon, stuff like that will be of the past, without requiring massive Tizen-like investments to have developers completely rebuild a hundred thousand mid-high quality apps for your store.

tree_of_item2• 11 years ago

I've been writing a lot of Go lately and this makes me pretty excited. The Go developers have put some effort in to getting Go working well on Android, with accompanying OpenGL related libraries[0]. If those apps really do work well on desktops now that'd be great.

[0] https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/mobile

pjmlp3• 11 years ago

It is no different than using the crippled NDK.

on_and_off3• 11 years ago

I don't know why you are getting down-voted. You are right, if you can't access to the Android framework, standard app development is heavily crippled.

kumarm• 11 years ago

Java's Write once Run Anywhere is live in spite of Sun's Failure. I just hope Oracle makes up with Google for Java's Sake.

Google is the only reason Java is not a dying Language.

axaxs• 11 years ago

Have you ever worked for boring, enterprisey companies? Java is everywhere, sadly.

edwinnathaniel• 11 years ago

Yep, like

Yahoo! (search, infra),

LinkedIN,

Twitter,

NetFlix,

Square,

RelateIQ (startup, bought by Salesforce),

Salesforce (itself),

Google,

RedHat,

Facebook (I'm sure there are a few teams that have to use Java),

Yammer,

the list goes on and on and on...

halosghost• 11 years ago

Here's hoping this is eventually gets made into a standalone library or program that can be run without Chrome. Don't get me wrong, Chrome definitely has some benefits over other browsers, but I don't want to have to have it to use this and I definitely don't want to have to run a browser to use apps.

yincrash• 11 years ago

There are already standalone Android runtimes to run apps as is on your computer without Chrome. See BlueStacks[1]

[1]http://www.bluestacks.com/

Zigurd2• 11 years ago

Bluestacks is an emulator running the Android OS under Windows, not an integration of the Android runtime with Windows. The latter is possible, but it would take quite a bit more work. Whereas ARC really is an Android runtime, separated from the Android OS, and ported to other OSs.

derefr• 11 years ago

And that library would be Chrome. Which is to say, whether or not you ship a web browser UX, you need 95%+ of Chrome to run NaCl/PPAPI apps, which this Android virtualization layer targets.

Really, Chrome itself isn't so much a web browser any more. I swear, at some point they're going to let you generate seeming-OS-native-binaries from Chrome Apps which will then bootstrap themselves by silent-installing Chrome—but only the "app launcher" part, not the "web browser" part. At that point, Chrome will be a capital-P-Platform: exactly the same as Silverlight/Adobe Air/etc.

snowwrestler• 11 years ago

At that point, Chrome will be a capital-P-Platform: exactly the same as Silverlight/Adobe Air/etc.

Or Flash, or Java...and look how well things have worked out for all those "write once, run anywhere" client app platforms!

icebraining• 11 years ago

Chrome Apps outside the browser were demonstrated a couple of years ago¹; but I'm not sure if it's in their interest to be so silent installing Chrome.

It's interesting that what you're describing is actually been done by Mozilla, when they separated XULRunner from Firefox. A few apps already use it², including Google's own Analytics Editor, but it needs to be way more polished to make it attractive to the general app developers.

¹ http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=j8o...

² http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XULRunner#Uses

samholmes• 11 years ago

Why would I want to run Android apps on any device?

dpcan• 11 years ago

If you are a Chromebook user, you want to run Android apps so there are more to apps available to you.

If you are an app developer, you want your apps in front of as many people as possible, regardless of their device.

Or, for the kids, this may mean Minecraft Pocket edition on the Chromebook :)

donatj• 11 years ago

I've been wanting the android kindle app on Mac for a while. It is so much better than the Mac app.

bootload• 11 years ago

"ARC runs Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS thanks to Native Client (abbreviated "NaCL"). NaCL is a Chrome sandboxing technology that allows Chrome apps and plugins to run at "near native" speeds"

Straight out of the MS playbook, 'lets use our dominant browser as a pincer move to gain developer/market share'.

pjmlp3• 11 years ago

But since it's Google everyone jumps and says yes!

blinkingled• 11 years ago

If this means Microsoft's Office Apps for Android (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook) come over to Chrome OS and Google manages to integrate them in a nice fashion - Microsoft has one more headache to deal with.

That aside, this will seriously increase the appeal of Chromebooks - who doesn't want a simple, secure platform that can run all the bazillion Android apps? Google just needs to pay some more attention to Chrome OS desktop interface - it is shitty frankly.

pekk2• 11 years ago

Android apps are typically a pretty lame desktop experience. It's the corollary of desktop apps typically being a lame mobile experience.

jon-wood• 11 years ago

Currently yes, because so few people are running them on a desktop. There's nothing preventing that from changing other than momentum though, Android is set up to handle varying form factors already, so if someone wanted to create an app which scales from mobile through tablet to desktop they can do so.

Now that there's a supported way to get Android apps running on people's desktops I could see this becoming more of a thing, especially for things like photo and document editing.

MarkMc8• 11 years ago

This is absolutely huge and I think some people may be missing its significance.

Back in the 90's Windows had a huge monopoly due to network effects - developers would target Windows because it had the greatest number of potential users. But now they will target Android for the same reason because it can run on Windows, Mac, ChromeOS and Android smartphones.

This "Android First" model will affect several major areas, all in Google's favour:

1. It strengthens ChromeOS over Windows.

ChromeOS is already a strong player in the education and low-price sectors. Having a huge range of Android apps will make ChromeOS far more attractive and grow its market share. Moreover if corporate, boring-office-CRUD developers switch to an Android-first model then it will very quickly kill Windows.

2. It strengthens Chrome over Firefox and IE.

Many apps will now require the Chrome browser to run. Oh, you are running Firefox on Windows and want to play that cool Android game your friend told you about? Just switch to Chrome and sign in with your Google account! Again there are network effects - the greater Chrome's market share the more willing developers are to create Chrome-only apps.

3. It strengthens Android over iOS.

Android has about 85% of smartphone market share, but many startups are still undecided about an Android-first approach because a single Apple user generates far more revenue than a single Android user. Having Android run on desktops will push some startups off the fence in favour of Android-first. A few developers switching from iOS to Android doesn't sound like much, but if there are a ever a critical mass of Android-only apps it will quickly kill iOS. Apple should be worried.

4. It strengthens Native over Web-app development.

Ok this isn't a huge benefit for Google, but it is significant for developers. Back in 2005 every startup chose browser-based web apps as their target platform. The rise of smartphones has pushed the pendulum back towards native development, but desktops have remained the preserve of web apps. Many startups now develop both a Web App and Android version of their product - by dumping Web App development startups will now be able to (a) save costs; (b) produce a desktop app that has native performance and better access to Google Play Services.

kibwen4• 11 years ago

It's certainly a fascinating piece of tech and a very politically intriguing play by Google, but I don't see it suddenly changing the calculus of app development. Here's why: the set of apps that I run on my phone are disjoint from the set of apps that I run on my laptop or desktop. My laptop doesn't need a flashlight, or turn-by-turn navigation, or the ability to hail a cab, because I don't have it out or open or even with me when I do the things that need these apps. My phone doesn't need Photoshop or Notepad++ because the form factor doesn't favor it. Write-once-run-everywhere isn't a selling point for your app because I don't actually want to run it everywhere.

The one exception could be games, which are a lucrative market. That said, mobile games will offer a limited set of interactions compared to typical PC offerings, which will limit appeal to people who are already playing mobile games but who wish to play those games on their desktop as well. It will increase time spent in the app, but not grow the market substantially relative to new users coming in from mobile devices. And because it requires a browser anyway and because ARC is never going to run on iOS, if the web can advance fast enough to keep the market satisfied (asm.js is a start, but payment is still horribly lacking) then there will be pressure to just do everything on the web anyway.

Interesting times are in store, regardless.

MarkMc8• 11 years ago

I think you may be underestimating the overlap between smartphone and desktop functionality. Take a look at the home screen of your smartphone - what percentage of those apps are also available as a web app? For me that figure is about 80%.

guelo• 11 years ago

As you say, there's a class of apps that works best on a phone and another that works best on a laptop. But there's also a class of apps that you'd want to run everywhere, for example all the addictive social media apps. For these it becomes more of your preference between touch vs point and click interfaces. This is what Windows has been trying to do, offering both paradigms in one device. I've talked to people with these Window devices who will switch between using the full-screen/touch and the windowed/mouse version of the same app based on their context. It's nice to have the options.

IkmoIkmo3• 11 years ago

I've done a fair bit of HTML5 game development for Mobile. And it's really tricky to get Mobile-first games to be fun on Desktop. All my games run on Desktop, but things like Flappy Bird just don't get much playtime on Desktop, it's popular because they're played in 'throwaway-time' on the bus, or in a bar when your friend is waiting in line to buy some drinks. A lot of mobile gaming is like that.

Which is why we don't see a ton of HTML5 games on desktop. Expectations for desktop games are far higher nowadays. If you're competing with a household-gaming experience (i.e. desktop games are generally played on your home computer), we're talking about competition like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, shooters, RPGs, or indeed big budget console games.

And seeing as any of these games can also run on your phone, and seeing as most gamers have phones nowadays, and seeing as your phone gives you a touch-screen experience around which the gameplay is built (e.g. swipe to throw a basket ball), you might as well play on your phone.

There are some exceptions, but not many. At the end of the day though, if the mobile game runs on your phone and desktop, you'll play it on your phone. If the game has a mobile version and a desktop version, and the mobile also runs on your desktop, you'll play the desktop version instead on your desktop. Mobile games on desktop is likely a relatively small market.

Of course this entire thing will shift slowly once you can run mobile games on your desktop. But it won't be a gigantic thing overnight. It's years away.

And considering I fully agree with all your points (Flashlight, nav, cab, Photoshop and Notepad++ are excellent examples of the divide) I think it'll take quite a bit of time before things take a big turn.

It kind of feels like the early Android tablet days. When the tablet app store offered just blown up phone apps. This is going to be that, but even more blown up, and much less finetuned to the mobile form factor. (e.g. things like swipe based UI just doesn't fly.) Of course it was clear that one day developers would build apps that'd adjust to both phones and tablets perfectly, but it took some time and it's still not quite there yet. This will be similar but I think it'll take a little longer, as it's not just a resolution-difference, but also requires developers to build multiple control systems (like swipe). The entire fat-finger vs precise-mouse driven UI/UX divide now needs to converge and it takes time.

In any case, the latest announcement of touch-screen Chromebooks makes a lot more sense now.

robmcm3• 11 years ago

ARC is never going to run on iOS

I don't see why the same applications couldn't be compiled to run on iOS, like unity or AIR for example.

mkozlows• 11 years ago

Will this support NDK apps? I don't really care about most Android apps -- I'd rather have an HTML version, and the web is a better universal runtime than the Android API for a bunch of reasons -- but it'd be cool to be able to play Android games on a Chromebook.

Jyaif• 11 years ago

It does.

bliti4• 11 years ago

I've had the opportunity to work with this project and it does deliver. In terms of code portability it's pretty good. Small changes had to be done to accommodate some yet to be supported APIs. No big deal though. The performance is good. Even on the low end chromebook I test with. Myonly concern is related to how the (my) codebase might need to evolve over time to adapt to ARC updates. Right now it's pretty sane with only a handful of extra settings on the manifest file. But I worry about being forced into forking. Having two similar but slightly different codebase for the same app is silly.

The overall experience with the Google team has been very positive. Which, in all honesty, surprised me. I was expecting the typical corporate attitude towards outsiders. The way the ARC team has gone above and beyond to help has been refreshing.

I do worry as to how this would affect the openness of the web. A closed source container used to run other closed sourced clients is not my idea of how the Web should be. Even Mozilla is going down this route with their browser apps. Though I have more trust in Mozilla than in Google in regards to having and keeping an open web. Either way, it raises an important question: Where is the Web going in the next 10 years? I wish I knew. Right now it looks like a toss up.

MarkMc8• 11 years ago

Just curious: What is your app? Is it available on Chrome web store?

bliti4• 11 years ago

I cannot divulge such information at this moment, sorry.

kevingadd• 11 years ago

Everything involved in Firefox OS and their web apps is open as far as I know, what are you thinking of when you say they're going down the 'closed source container / clients' route?

bliti4• 11 years ago

My point is more towards Chrome/Google. I mentioned Mozilla with regards to firefox the Web browser and not firefox os. The latter does excite my interest and has me dying to get my hands on a device to tinker with and build apps. Even if it's with javascript. :)

bad_user• 11 years ago

Even Mozilla is going down this route with their browser apps.

Why are you saying that?

What Mozilla is doing is to develop web APIs needed for those apps and then push for their standardization, but all the apps listed in the Firefox Marketplace are just web apps, having no problem in running in other browsers (assuming they don't rely on APIs that haven't been standardized yet). Google is also doing this with Chrome on Android, as they've also been pushing for certain standards to be adopted that would benefit apps.

Of course, I also worry about ARC or NaCL or Dart (what's with Google these days?), however the work that Mozilla and Google are doing on those web APIs meant for apps is really not the same thing.

whoisthemachine2• 11 years ago

Of course, I also worry about ARC or NaCL or Dart (what's with Google these days?)

That's fairly typical of Google to have 2 or more of everything. Inbox and Gmail, Chromebooks and Android are prime examples.

Ars Technica has a write-up on it that lists more: http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/10/googles-product-stra...

bliti4• 11 years ago

Good points. My worries are more directed towards the browser becoming a second OS and moving towards client apps. I guess I'm old school and am still tied to good old html.

on_and_off3• 11 years ago

Having two similar but slightly different codebase for the same app is silly. isn't that what flavors are for ?

clay_to_n• 11 years ago

Are there any code changes necessary to get your app to work on this? When I run my APK I just get a white screen with the app logo in the center.

brudgers• 11 years ago

To me this seems like a hope and pray response to where Windows is heading with a heterogeneous platform strategy. What people want is high quality robust full featured applications on their mobile devices, not app store quality word processing on their laptop.

I already have all the Gmail and hangouts on my desktop I could ever want. I don't think I'll use the Clojure REPL app in lieu of $> lein repl or the Maps app in lieu of my browser. To a first approximation, apps are better than nothing but I don't see this as a Windows 8 app killer ~ their standard of fit and finish is generally higher.

There's a niche where this will be great but I don't see an app replacing audacity or blender anytime soon.

empressplay• 11 years ago

Hrm. I converted one of my Android apps with ARC welder and uploaded it to the Chrome store but it will only install from there on Chromebooks =( Anyone know how to enable desktop distribution?

MarkMc8• 11 years ago

So where can I see a list of Android apps which I can run on my Mac?

pygy_• 11 years ago

Is there any project under way to translate PNaCl code to asm.js?

Edit: reading further, PNaCl happens to be a subset of LLVM IR. The Emscripten code could probably be repurposed to run NaCl and thus Android apps everywhere.

iso8859-1• 11 years ago

you're forgetting the API (pepper). There are already Pepper shims for Emscripten but they are unusable.

timeu• 11 years ago

On the one hand this is really awesome because by opening ChromeOS up to Android apps it becomes much more useful.

The other side of the medal is that this might slow down progress on the open web-platform as developers would rather develop a native android app than put effort to make a web-app.

It somehow funny: Recent developments around the web platform (service workers, etc) are supposed to make web-apps compete with native apps and even Microsoft is starting to embrace this (web based skype). At the same time now native apps run in the web. It will be interesting how to this will evolve.

It also shows why Google developed NaCL and that it doesn't really matter that it hasn't been adopted by other browsers. Because its main use case is for ChromeOS.

robmcm3• 11 years ago

So we have come full circle in circa 5 years.

We now have a development platform for desktop quality apps in a proprietary format that run via a plugin in the web and in a runtime on desktop.

The only missing link is publishing the plugin so other browsers can run the apps, oh and renaming it to Flash.

amelius• 11 years ago

Sigh. We need this going the other way around; that is, our mobile devices supporting web-apps, instead of our browsers supporting mobile apps.

ARC is going to be the next Flash(TM). And now developers still have to target multiple platforms (web, android, ios), instead of just the web.

dragonwriter2• 11 years ago

What mobile browser doesn't support web apps? They may not support proprietary app stores and the nonstandard "web" (but not really) apps tied to them, but actual web apps are generally supported on major mobile browsers.

digi_owl• 11 years ago

I really wonder why it is only Mozilla right now that offers their browser as a tar.gz for Linux use.

jfuhrman• 11 years ago

Is this the reason that Chrome seems be getting extremely bloated on the desktop? It's like running a ChromeOS VM with every chrome.exe process. I guess it's time to go back to Firefox or try Spartan.

dragonwriter2• 11 years ago

The Google page linked from the article does not support the claim that this extends beyond ChromeOS for deployment via the Web Store -- in fact, it repeatedly says the opposite --only that the packaging and testing process works on Mac/Windows/Linux.

smd686s• 11 years ago

As a marketer, this allows me to manage social accounts like Instagram and Vine from the desktop env. In fact, we have those two working for our team now:

https://medium.com/@seanmdixon/run-android-apps-in-chrome-78...

Google’s ARC Now Runs Android Apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac, and Linux

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