Housepad running on Chrome! Windows, MaxOSX, Linux

Hi,

just to let you know, Google has released a beta of their App Runtime for Chrome.
This means you can run an Android APK on Windows, MacOSX, and Linux.
Just install the Beta APP "Arc Welder" on your chrome browser and use the desired apk.

https://developer.chrome.com/apps/getstarted_arc

I realize that this is in an early beta stage but Housepad seems to work and I am really exited because that would bring a Indigo Client to nearly every desktop.
Lets get testing...
Cheers
Wilhelm

Ha! I was just about to post the same thing! This is fan-freaking-tastic! Housepad is running on my mac:

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Interesting! I'll definitely have to check that out... haven't kept up with that since their initial announcement of it a while back, to be honest. Interested to see how it will handle resolution and stuff once I am able to start tablet-optimizations of any kind. Some interesting possibilities there, for sure.

I'm interested in seeing what could be done once uploaded -- installing it to Chrome would be cool for quick access anywhere... would love that for work and such, though makes the feature request of requiring a PIN perhaps a bit more important!

Thanks for sharing, I will definitely look up some more info about it!

Adam

[matt (support)]

That is really cool. I wish Apple would do that with iOS...

[matt (support)]

I just tried launching it using latest Chrome (and ARC Welder) but get a "WebGL not supported" error on launch. I'll try it on a different Mac later.

That is really cool. I wish Apple would do that with iOS...

I'm somewhat shocked that they haven't given how other parts of the OS have been getting slightly more iOS-like with each release (not the whole thing, but like Launch Pad and the like). Seems like it would behoove them to allow iOS App Store apps to run. The Xcode simulator isn't so bad of a performance that it would be unusable, assuming of course that some optimizations would be had if they were to allow the OS to run apps directly. Not trivial, but I am PRETTY sure Apple has some money laying around somewhere to throw at it...

This has been on Google's radar for a while because, frankly, the Chrome Book is a cool little "toy" right now. Add in the ability to run Android apps and it becomes potentially competitive with MS Surface or even low-end MacBook Air devices.

Adam

I just tried launching it using latest Chrome (and ARC Welder) but get a "WebGL not supported" error on launch. I'll try it on a different Mac later.

Matt you can go to http://get.webgl.org/to verify support and also in Chrome goto [url]chrome://flags[/url] then search for WebGL and see if it's been disabled for your platform:

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Terry

OBVIOUSLY, some things may not work or work differently, I did a very quick read over the developer docs and there are a few gotchas that I would need to address - most are actually just configuration flags and not API, so likely wouldn't take much work to get it working cleanly. That said, I think most things would work ok -- have you gotten any errors or had any issues, Terry/Wilhelm?

Is there a trick to getting past the "This app won't run without Google Play services, which are missing from your tablet." message?

Jeff

Click install.
The popup will return every time you open the dashboard once.
I think either Adam or google will solve this sometime...

Is there a trick to getting past the "This app won't run without Google Play services, which are missing from your tablet." message?

That was addressed in the developer docs (that message comes from Google's code when you attempt to register the app for Google Services)... apparently you can set a configuration option that will enable it to connect to Google Services when on Chrome OS / extension. I'm going to read it an try it tonight if I get some free time.

I need to put a setting to disable that message for the few devices that don't have Google Play Services at all -- the app should work just without certain features such as push notifications.

Adam

Adam, the only error I've seen so far is a nag about Google Play Services being unavailable on startup.

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EDIT: oops, just noticed you guys already talking about it... Ignore me