BlueStacks App Player for PC Now in Beta
Our friends at BlueStacks have announced that their App Player for PC, an app that allows you to run Android applications on your Windows desktop, is now available in beta form. The alpha, which ran late last year, was a very interesting release that showed us it’s possible to run Android apps on a PC, but beta-1 takes it to a whole new level.
BlueStacks is announcing that this release utilizes their patent pending LayerCake technology to make applications run as smoothly as if they were running directly on ARM devices. Along with the ability to accurately run pretty much any app and game you can throw at it, BlueStacks has found a way to enable hardware acceleration, just as if you were on a phone or tablet.
This release has a few pre-installed apps for users to enjoy, including Fruit Ninja, Evernote, Barnes & Noble Nook Reader, and more. They use an interesting selling point with Angry Birds Space. While Rovio is charging $6 to play on PC, BlueStacks will pretty much get you the game on your PC for free. Head to their site and sign-up to be a beta tester if you’re interested. Read on for full press details.
BlueStacks Brings 450,000 Android Apps to a Billion PCs
After 3-month alpha test attracts a million users and a Best of CES award,
company releases beta-1 version of “App Player”CAMPBELL, Calif. – March 27, 2012 – BlueStacks announced the availability of the beta-1 version of
their App Player for PC today. The software supports Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, and enables
Android apps to run in windowed or fullscreen mode on PC.The beta-1 version incorporates the company’s patent-pending LayercakeTM technology. LayerCakeTM
enables Android apps to run seamlessly on x86-based PCs. This includes apps written for the
ARM processor like Angry Birds Space and Fruit Ninja, as well as apps that use hardware graphics
acceleration. These latter capabilities were not part of last year’s alpha version. Apps designed for high-
end tablets that use graphics-intensive engines such as Unity can also run on the new platform.“LayerCake is a disruptive technology that enables PC manufacturers to bring the best of the Android
ecosystem to their customers. It also leverages the advanced graphics capabilities of AMD APU and
GPU platforms,” said Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, Content, Applications and Solutions at
AMD (NYSE: AMD). We are excited to work with BlueStacks to make the emerging Android mobile apps
market part of the broader computing arena, especially given that the beta-1 version has been localized
for 10 different countries.”The alpha test of BlueStacks ran from October through December of last year, and included a more
limited app selection. In those three months, it attracted over a million users in more than 100 countries
such as the US, Korea, Brazil, Germany and China. Over 4.5 Million apps were opened. Especially
popular were apps like Kakao Talk in Korea, Wordfeud in Germany and WhatsApp in the US. “You know,
first there was Angry Birds on Chrome which was a big deal, then recently Steve Ballmer stood up at CES
and announced that Cut the Rope had been ported to IE9 – with BlueStacks, it’s 450,000 apps coming to
Windows at once,” said BlueStacks CEO, Rosen Sharma.
The developers behind top apps like Fruit Ninja, SliceIt!, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Townsmen, Evernote,
Defender and StumbleUpon have partnered with BlueStacks to have their apps pre-loaded in the beta-1
version. “A Billion PCs is a huge potential market for any developer. There is the potential to make good
money from the additional app discovery and usage,” said Markus Kassulke, CEO of popular developer
HandyGames. “The best part is, we don’t have to do any work. Our apps run without any modifications or
porting.”About BlueStacks
BlueStacks is a software company that enables Android apps to run on PCs, Ultrabooks and tablets . BlueStacks
is privately held and headquartered in Silicon Valley with global offices in India, Taiwan and Japan. The company
launched in 2009 and is privately funded. Investors include Andreessen-Horowitz, Radar Partners, Ignition
Partners, Helion Ventures and chipmaker AMD. The company has raised 14 million in funding so far. For more
information visit BlueStacks.com, or join their over 200,000 Facebook fans at http://Facebook.com/bluestacksinc.
Follow along on Twitter at @BlueStacksinc