Feb 12, 2021 Here are some of the best Android emulators for Mac. Bluestacks is one of the most popular Android emulators for Windows and is probably the best Android emulator for macOS, as well. This emulator is built primarily for mobile gamers and claims to provide a “PC-like” gaming experience for your mobile apps. Jul 26, 2021 Mac OS, on the other hand, is a wonderful operating system used by Apple Inc. On it's Mac PC and MacBook. It has a marvelous user interface and great features. It will be fantastic if we were able to use Android apps on Mac PC. Luckily, it is possible by using an emulator. In this article, we will learn about the five best Android Emulators for.
It’s finally public. As described in the previous Status Update, a new maintanence release is out. Among the most important enhancements
•Android 64-bit support (arm64-v8a & x86_64)
•macOS 10.15 Catalina, iOS 13 & Xcode 11 support
•Native Xcode Archive support for submitting apps to the App Store or for macOS Notarization
There are also a lot of smaller fixes and changes under the hood to support these things. However, an aggressive attempt was made to NOT change too many things because for those wanting to add 64-bit Android builds, the better thing is to simply recompile and not worry about other things breaking. So the next release will look at updating more things. In addition, because this release was already long overdue, Raspberry Pi and Swift compilers are untouched this released and planned for the next.
So without further adieu, hit Purge, then Generate, and then build your project. Hopefully all will just work, just as before.
Android 64-bit
It should be easy to use, and is pretty much just a recompile and ship new version on your part. It contains 64-bit binaries for both arm64-v8a and x86_64. The latter is useful for Android Emulator testing, though as always, it is best testing on a real device. 32-bit armeabi-v7a and x86 are still included. (Contrary to my expectations, I learned the hard way that brand new 32-bit Android devices are still sold in major stores.)
However there are a few subtle changes you should be aware of.
•Google reorganized the Android NDK quite a bit, so the build process for all of the libraries shipped in Blurrr had to undergo a build system overhaul. 64-bit itself has a higher minimum SDK requirement of API 21 (Android 5.0), but there was a serious bug in 5.0 which was fixed in 5.1. So Blurrr’s new miniumum Android version is now API 22 (Android 5.1).
•The OpenAL implemention for Android needed to be replaced. Since the very early days of Android, I’ve been using a special fork of OpenAL Soft specially intended to deal with Android and the lack of floating point in the early days. Unfortunately, this implementation is not 64-bit clean and is effectively end-of-life. Fortunately, modern Android devices have hardware floating point, so we can move to the official OpenAL Soft implementation which now supports Android. But because this is a different OpenAL backend, you may want to do extra testing with your audio code to make sure things still work the way you expect.
Android 64-bit support: After clicking the Run button
All 4 primary architectures are present:
Google Pixel is arm64-v8a
Nexus 7 is armeabi-v7a
Nexus 5X Emulator is x86
Pixel 2 Emulator is x86_64
macOS 10.15 Catalina & iOS 13
macOS App Notarization is the big change which will be discussed in the next section. But due to new OS bugs and Apple restricting once acceptable APIs in the name of security & privacy, SDL has been updated for macOS & iOS to fix these problems. The other platforms have kept the existing version of SDL to minimize changes as described in the introduction.
macOS App Notarization & native Xcode Archive Feature (macOS & iOS)
One ugly area of the CMake Xcode generator is the Archive feature which is used to submit apps (both iOS & Mac) to the App Store. Additionally macOS 10.15 Gatekeeper now requires apps to be Notarized if downloaded from the Internet.
Blurrr SDK has now managed to wrangle the CMake generation to make the Archive feature work. So now you can submit apps the way Apple has intended.
Remember that to submit to the App Store or to distribute for GateKeeper compliance (Developer ID and notarization), you must have an Apple Developer membership ($99/year). Make sure you have connected Xcode with your account so all your certificates are on your machine.
As an example of the native Archive feature, the following screenshots show step-by-step how easy it is to Notarize your app. Starting with BlurrrGenProj, make sure you enable code signing with your Developer ID Application certificate.
Enable Code Signing and select Developer ID Application
Macos Android Emulator Slow
Generate and open the project in Xcode. Change the selected target to your app (e.g. MyBlurrrProject or FlappyBlurrrLua).
Make sure to change the selected target to the App.
(CMake sets the default to ALL_BUILD which is not what we want.)
Then in the Xcode menu under Product, select Archive.
When successful, your Archive will appear in the Xcode Organizer. You can then use the Distribute App button on the right side. Follow the wizard. When successful, you will see the “Export Notarized App” become enabled in the bottom right corner.
2. Pick Developer ID for Notarization
(or Pick App Store Connect to submit your app to the App Store)
8. Notarization complete. Export Notarized App is clickable in bottom right corner.
Of course, you may also notarize the hard way using Apple’s command line tools.
IupCocoa, IupCocoaTouch, IupAndroid & IupEmscripten accepted into official IUP SVN
As mentioned last time, our work for “IupNext” has been officially accepted into mainline of the official IUP project. I’ve updated the distribution to use our merged repo. Also, our proposal for IupPostMessage (useful for sending message from background threads to the main UI thread) is now accepted. The BlurrrNetworkDiscovery example and documentation (which was one heavy user of this API) has been updated to reflect the final accepted API.
BlurrrGenProj .blurrrproj file format
BlurrrGenProj now has its very own file format, with extension .blurrrproj.
This can sometimes be a small convenience helper, especially if you like to double-click files to open things in your platform’s file browser. (And on Mac, you can do all the extra things too, such as drag the file onto the Dock icon, etc.)
macOS will automatically associate this extension for you.
On Windows and Linux, use the menu option ‘Set file association for .blurrrproj’.
Smaller Distribution Size
This version of Blurrr SDK is now 60% smaller. The main reason is the use of hardlinks now in the SDK which cuts almost 2/3 of the size. Blurrr also no longer uses .zip as the primary archiver fomat, since zip is not hardlink aware, and others offer higher compression formats.
For Apple, we now ship a notarized DMG. There actually was kind of a bug in prior releases with the .zip distribution. I forgot about GateKeeper Path Randomization, which would break things if you didn’t move the folder out of your Downloads directory after unzipping. So the correct fix for this is to ship a code signed DMG. The DMG is using the ULFO format which is Apple’s newest format and has the greatest compression. However, I found zipping the dmg after the fact still shaved off another 20%, so the .dmg is zipped after the fact.
Simply download and open the .zip with Finder. The .dmg will extract to the file system. Open the .dmg. Drag the BlurrrSDKApple directory to /Applications (or any wrtiable directory of your choosing).
For Windows and Linux,a tar.xz file is provided instead of a zip file. The tar allows for the preservation of hardlinks which keeps both the download smaller and actually uses less space on disk (sometimes more than what your tools may report). And xz provides better compression than many other formats, while mainstream enough that the Linux kernel source uses .tar.xz now for downloads.
Most Linux distros now have built-in support for xz in the tar utility:
tar xvf BlurrrSDKLinux.tar.xz
For Windows, unfortunately, there is still no built-in .tar support, let alone .xz. But the free and open source 7-Zip has great Windows support and handles .tar.xz (and many other formats) with ease. Grab it at https://www.7-zip.org/download.html. (Remember that it is two-step with this tool…first the xz and then the tar.)
Try it today!
We’re all well aware about the capabilities of the Android platform. There are smartphones today that can compete with a wide range of technologies. However, what makes those devices really tick is the core Android platform. But what if you own an iPhone and still want to try out Android phone ? Well, you no longer have to purchase an expensive (or inexpensive) phone to find out. There are best Android emulator for Mac today that can help you run and bring full compatibility with all the features of Android (without owning one), while some even update their emulators with the latest version of Android.
With these Android Emulator For Mac, you can run apps for android, play games, and do pretty much anything like the Android device can (barring phone calls, obviously). Those are just the three main uses of a built in emulator. So we’re going to talk a bit about some of the most popular emulators out there. While some user friendly emulators are present here, we’re also going to talk about developer emulators that can help test out or run android apps and android games.
Instead of giving your only 5 best emulators, we are citing 7 on this post for cross platform. So let’s get to the best Android apps and games emulator for Mac.
Best Android Emulator For Mac
1. ARChon
ARChon is a little different than most of our best Android emulators for PC or Mac in that this one is actually a Google Chrome extension. That’s right — no installing a program on your machine and wasting precious storage space! It is comparable to a virtual machine, virtual device or virtual devices.
Of course, it’s certainly not nearly as seamless as a native program, as it can take a bit of fiddling to get apps and mobile games to work. To use ARChon, once you have it setup in the browser, you’ll have to push or drag APKs to load the apps within the browser. It’s a nice, free program for those that want to be able to use an Android emulator wherever there is Google Chrome.
Not sure where to find APKs for ARChon? You can find many of them for free over at almost any Android APK repository. Some of our most trusted and favorites are APK Mirror or APK Pure.
Download it now:here
2. VirtualBox
Believe it or not, you can actually use VirtualBox to create your own Android emulator for Mac. Download VirtualBox on your Mac machine, and then set it up with the necessary ISO image from Android-x86.org. You’ll be able to create an efficient emulator that allows you to play almost any game or app within Mac.
As an added bonus, VirtualBox gives you a lot of control over how much resources and hardware you devote to it. That allows you to keep your overall machine running smoothly while still running your Android operating system emulator in the background. VirtualBox is free to use; however, it is recommended that you have at least 8GB of RAM on your machine if you want to run this one.
Download it now:here
3. KO Player
KO Player is a relatively new entrant in the emulators game and is one of the newer Android emulators on the list. It markets itself as a mid-market emulator that can run apps and multiple games comfortably. While the focus is mainly on games, this is a full blown Android emulator, so it can run pretty much any app on the Play Store as long as it is compatible with the Android version. The company’s website doesn’t mention which version of Android it’s running, but talks about a few popular apps and games that are compatible with KO Player (WhatsApp, Clash of Clans etc).
It also comes with features like gameplay recording, keyboard gameplay support, and comes with the Google Play Store pre-installed. It is said that about 99% of the Play Store apps are compatible with KO Player. The best part here is that KO Player is a free download, and can be snatched up directly from their official website. As with any free offering, expect some minor issues during usage. However, the app developers are pretty keen on offering a fresh and refined experience through bug fixes.
Download it now:here
4. Nox Player
This is yet another decent alternative for gamers. It comes with the ability to run android games, support joysticks and controllers (assuming your Mac supports actual hardware controller support). There is zero lag during gameplay or general usage, so you can be assured of a smooth performance. Among the list of features here is the ability to keep multiple accounts on Nox, which is handy if you want to use it on the family computer. You will find that the emulator is compatible with pretty much every popular game and app right now.
Further, the emulator is compatible with x86 as well as AMD processors, thus bringing a variety of devices under its compatibility list and access to most Android games. Like with KO Player, Nox allows users to record their screen and share it on social media as they please. It’s one gaming oriented emulator can be very handy for graphics heavy games available as well as strategy games like Clash of Clans and Fortnite (which will reach Android emulation shortly).
More importantly, it’s light on your computer, much like helping it run smoothly and devoid of lag. This is also a free offering with no hidden caveats. Nox also offers the keyboard mapping feature, so the user can play more efficiently with mouse and keyboard. If you are one of those mobile gamers, this one is for you as it is considered as the Android emulator for gamers.
Download it now:here
5. Bluestacks
Bluestacks is probably the most popular Android emulator currently available in the market, and with good reason. This app has served Windows and Mac OS users for a few years now, giving them a viable way using Android on their desktop. This isn’t an ideal setup for developers, though, as Bluestacks is marketed for the masses. This means there will be some lag when you operate, although it’s rapidly diminishing with each update. The recent version of Bluestacks was updated to Android Nougat, making it the freshest Android emulator out there. It’s too soon to tell if and when Bluestacks will update its offering to Android 8.0 or even 9.0 as the latest Android version, so it will have active updates nearly every month.
As it stands, if gaming and social media is your priority, Bluestacks is an excellent emulator to have as it aims itself at gamers. GameLoop is an Android emulator that is used as a gaming platform. It can run all the heavy games and even offer key mapping support, which has become a prerequisite with modern day Android emulators and can bring the better or for worse Android app and game on your Mac. With the added smart keymapping along with a customizable game support, this android emulator is mostly going to boasts a gamer experience.
Bluestacks official emulator is entirely free to download, but will require a subscription per month for continued usage.
Download it now: here
6. Genymotion
One of the newer emulators if you want to run Android on your Mac is Genymotion. We are now coming to the dev-friendly emulators out there. You won’t find all the bells and whistles that you probably see with Bluestacks, Genymotion lets you test out how an Android device and version would work with a particular app or supports Android operating systems. For example, you can have a Nexus 4 running Android 5.0 or an even older device running that version like Android 4.2 Jelly Bean Kit Kat(assuming it’s compatible).
Genymotion can let you run an emulator directly on your PC or on the cloud, which very few emulators out there can do. This means you can share the functionings of your app with the rest of the world without them having to download a dedicated emulator.
This is a game changer for developers who like to get opinions on their projects from the masses or close associates. Naturally, the android emulator for PC option is also present, so you’re free to use it the old fashioned way. This isn’t a free version offering for personal use, though, so be prepared to subscribe to one of Genymotion’s plans to reap the benefits of all the features mentioned above.
Download it now: here
Macos Android Emulator Path
7. Android Studio
Google’s very own Android Studio emulator also comes with an emulator you can download, although it’s significantly less flashy than a few commercial use emulators and actually run android natively. However, it is updated frequently with new features. This is designed specifically for budding and experienced Android developers to test out their apps before it is pushed to the Play Store. It works with both PCs and Macs, so neither platform is left out. It has all the tools to build and design your apps, while the emulator feature allows you to glance through your creation.
Given the feature set, it is definitely not recommended for amateurs, as setting it up could take some time. Android Studio is a free download on both major platforms, and is a 880MB download for Macs. Though updating those services may take time, watch out for more active development in years with this productivity emulator.
Mac Os Android Emulator
Download it now: here
Macos Start Android Emulator
While these emulators offer a great experience for your Mac as it runs android apps/games like Call of Duty Mobile and PUBG mobile, this may also create a negative effect on your device as the level use might increase, especially with the battery life. Running multiple emulators may affect your device operation as it depends on the operating systems and hardware.
Always test your apps or test apps on the emulator you install once you’ve downloaded them and see the emulators ability to run smoothly and see if it is usable as a productivity tool for PC and Mac. There are still best android emulators that you can discover around the web that can run an Android app or game. The installation process may take longer than expected, depending on various factors such as internet speed and the likes.
Macos Android Emulator Location
If you find another Android emulator or free android emulator that is actually a fairly decent, actually works pretty well and that suits your taste, feel free to use it as long as it runs well or work well, gets the work done or the emulators run properly. You can use emulators as a productivity tool for video loading or loading video. Just find one that supports this kind of function. You might be able to get the price free for personal use just like PrimeOS Remix OS player and other Android Studio S emulator or ldplayer android studio.