Setting Up Your Mac to Run Any Android App You Want Using Chrome: A How To

Setting Up Your Mac to Run Any Android App You Want Using Chrome: A How To

Alright, this was way easier than I thought it was going to be. You do have to copy and paste a couple of commands into your Terminal and turn on Developer mode in your Chrome extensions, but that is really all that there is to it. I’m just writing this out in case you are looking to do this and play around, but here is what Angry Birds Star Wars looks like on my Mac:

  1. Install Homebrew (follow the first instruction on this page… that’s it.): Homebrew — The missing package manager for OS X

    Homebrew installs the stuff you need that Apple didn’t.

  2. Install NPM and Node.js (follow the first instruction on this page… that’s it.): Setting up Node.js and npm on Mac OSX | Shape Shed

    Setting up Node.js and npm on Mac OSX

  3. Install ChromeOS-APK (follow the download and install instructions on this page): chromeos-apk/README.md at master · vladikoff/chromeos-apk

    npm install chromeos-apk -g

  4. Download and install the right version of the ARChron extension (follow the instructions on this page): chromeos-apk/archon.md at master · vladikoff/chromeos-apk

    ARChon runtime lets you run unlimited number of Android APKs created with chromeos-apk on Chrome OS and across any desktop platform that supports Chrome.

If you are the type of person who is really looking to test out a lot of Android Apps but doesn’t know which ones will work with this method, here is a quick spreadsheet of nearly all of them that have been tried. Please note: this spreadsheet contains links to download APK files as well. If you haven’t paid for the APK through the Google Play store, please don’t download the APK for use on your Mac.

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