Android apps running native on macOS

(github.com)

159 points | by flocked 3 hours ago

17 comments

  • 012973981605 2 minutes ago
    Meanwhile I ignore most of the posts here that are Apple-related, this one was able to draw my attention. Checked the 'how it works' page and was impressed how easily Claude made the 32-to-64 bit ARM translator for you. We need more effort of this kind for the x86 ecosystem, generated or not, but the mobile-app-everything culture becomes really annoying and needs to be fought this way.
  • bilalq 2 hours ago
    In practice, the Google Play Services dependencies and other walled-garden initiatives from Google will make this less useful than it could otherwise be. But still, this is really cool.
    • direwolf20 5 minutes ago
      Is this your experience or are you repeating something you heard somewhere?
    • Doohickey-d 2 hours ago
      I guess, in practice this can also be likely be made to run google services, the same as they can run on custom ROMs. And it already lists Aurora store as a solution.

      So it's definitely something for more tinkerer people, but still quite cool.

      • als0 1 hour ago
        Everything aside from apps with SafetyNet dependencies. Banking apps come to mind.
        • chaosharmonic 1 hour ago
          Also, a lot of games. This is actually why I stopped playing Pokemon Go, and never picked up a worse gacha game habit haha
        • franga2000 1 hour ago
          Soo many more things than banking apps at this point. Things as normal as looking at train schedules, grocery store catalogues, ordering a taxi... sometimes have SafetyNet DRM.

          When you publish apps on Google Play, the Play Developer Console even nags you to use harder obfuscation and implement Google's DRM to, allegedly, protect yourself and your users.

          Can the EU finally make this shit illegal? Oh wait, they're pusing for mandatory DRM too... Fuck.

    • kelvinjps10 35 minutes ago
      You can run it with microg
    • figmert 1 hour ago
    • dawnerd 54 minutes ago
      It's also pretty easy just to spin up bluestacks if you really need android apps on a mac.
    • chaosharmonic 1 hour ago
      Optimist take: this will matter less over time as more developers start targeting Steam devices
      • gambiting 1 hour ago
        ...what steam devices? Steam Deck and Machine? I work in video games(at one of the largest publishers - worked at other two in the last few years) - and while we usually do some testing on the steam deck it's literally just to see if the windows version runs well. Full on Linux porting effort like Larian did for BG3 is very very rare and extremely hard to justify.
        • mgol94 29 minutes ago
          And I hate it with a passion. Publishers have no problem taking money from Linux users, only to ignore Linux-related bug reports and tell people “it’s not supported.”

          I really hope Steam will use its position soon to either let users get refunds when devs break their games or force the gaming industry to support the Linux users they’re making money from.

          • Rohansi 8 minutes ago
            That's really what the (Deck/Machine/SteamOS) Verified program is for. Valve tests games out on those platforms and reports results back for everyone on the store page. Publishers have the control to explicitly mark it as unsupported too.
        • freedomben 1 hour ago
          In your experience, is "Steam Deck Verified" attractive enough to fix any issues you might find when testing? I've been immensely curious about whether it's moved the needle at all
        • Rohansi 1 hour ago
          Most games run on Steam devices via Proton (Wine). You don't really need a native port in that case.
        • DaiPlusPlus 1 hour ago
          > Full on Linux porting effort like Larian did for BG3 is very very rare and extremely hard to justify

          Given the zeitgeist, how realistic are the calls to “just get AI to do it”? I’ve been rattled by just how good some one-shot (or otherwise low-human-effort) Claude ports of some games are (and I don’t mean “decomps”, but instead where an existing open-source and already-cross-platform codebase is ported over to new targets like WASM+Canvas, like C&C Generals: the AI-bros are in full-force posting demos of their new ports on a nearly daily basis - so if it’s as easy as these people say, why aren’t we seeing it from the major publishers?

          • nomel 56 minutes ago
            > why aren’t we seeing it from the major publishers?

            Models are just recently capable of reliably doing this type of deeper work, which is why you're only seeing it now. There hasn't really been enough time to see it. And still, why? Modern gaming on Linux is almost always on accident, with the devs targeting windows, with no thoughts of Linux at all. Seems like it would make more sense to point the AI at wine, to make linux run Windows better.

    • cyanydeez 34 minutes ago
      figuring out how to get PWA working would be a much better goal.
    • bobsmooth 2 hours ago
      Can MicroG be ported?
  • f17428d27584 1 hour ago
    Handy for Minecraft players on Mac: windows players may be on Java or on bedrock versions, but mobile and console players are all only on bedrock. Being able to run the Android version on Mac means I can play with local console players or join a bedrock realm.

    (There are compatibility workarounds if you run your own server but I don’t want the headache of doing so).

    Perhaps one day Mojang will enable Macos users to run the iPad (bedrock) version of Minecraft as well..

    • nomel 47 minutes ago
      > Perhaps one day Mojang will enable Macos users to run the iPad (bedrock)

      I predict they will, once macOS drops intel support in macOS 28.

    • forgotpwd16 1 hour ago
      Funnily, specifically for Minecraft Bedrock, there's such a project (implementing a limited/specialized compatibility layer) targeting Linux/macOS for few years now.
    • VCFundedGenYer 1 hour ago
      There was a solution on macOS for quite some time (https://github.com/minecraft-linux/macos-builder/) but Apple is killing off the OpenGL frameworks to make it work.
  • hypfer 2 hours ago
    Arguably not a bad use of a claude subscription, provided that it actually works.
  • tantalor 2 hours ago
    Reminds me of Google vs. Oracle lawsuit for API fair use.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_....

    • Zigurd 2 hours ago
      Google v Oracle comes down to an argument over infringement when copying constants. IANAL but I would've said constants are facts and not protectable.
  • dmonterocrespo 32 minutes ago
    Great project...it would be awesome to be able to run APK on the iPhone
  • Broiler9437 50 minutes ago
    Cross-platform has never been easier than ever
  • mkirsten 1 hour ago
    Crazy I was the first to star on GitHub. I’m going to give this a try for some tinkering projects.
  • tuomas2 1 hour ago
    This is very cool! Next IOS.apk? ;)
    • forgotpwd16 1 hour ago
      macOS includes[0] a built-in iOS compatibility subsystem. PlayCover allows utilizing it for running arbitrary iOS apps.

      [0]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple-silicon/runn...

      • wffurr 14 minutes ago
        And yet somehow Microsoft / Mojang don't see fit to enable Minecraft Bedrock for iPads on Macs. Pretty frustrating for cross-platform play. It's pretty funny that Bluestacks / Mac.apk work just fine for playing the Android Bedrock version on a Mac when the iOS app is right there.
    • VCFundedGenYer 1 hour ago
      [flagged]
  • sirjaz 2 hours ago
    This is awesome, now this needs to work on Windows
    • Tarball10 2 hours ago
      Windows had something like this (Windows Subsystem for Android) which worked really well until Microsoft went and killed it.
      • forgotpwd16 2 hours ago
        WSA was (or is, since still works unofficially) running Android in VM underneath.
    • majorchord 1 hour ago
      BlueStacks has worked really well for me.
      • maxloh 35 minutes ago
        It is based on VM, so it is a lot slower.

        You can't even run Instagram on a low-end laptop.

      • inknight 1 hour ago
        isn't BlueStacks full of chinese ads nowadays?
        • dawnerd 54 minutes ago
          Unfortunately. But there really isn't anything out there as reliable as it.
        • majorchord 45 minutes ago
          I wouldn't know, I block all Chinese IPs at my router.
  • bsimpson 2 hours ago
    People take the iOS version of Fortnite and repackage it to run on Mac.
  • tamimio 55 minutes ago
    Slightly off topic, what skill/diagram tool did you use to make the diagrams?
  • LoganDark 2 hours ago
    Couple issues with this right off the bat:

    - Seemingly relies on the Java virtual machine for simulation -- no support for native ARM binaries?

    - Stores data inside the .app

    • yincrash 1 hour ago
      Looks like it will run native ARM just fine according to the readme?
      • LoganDark 53 minutes ago
        I saw a hint of machine code recompilation in the libraries list (like capstone), but couldn't find enough to verify if recompilation doesn't just mean extracting the dalvik stuff and reformatting it to run on a normal JVM
    • leopoldcongo 31 minutes ago
      [dead]
  • iAMkenough 2 hours ago
    No app sandboxing? User files and settings stored in the /Applications/ folder, rather than the User’s home folder?
  • VCFundedGenYer 1 hour ago
    Naming it Mac.apk is a poor choice. So it's Mac.apk.app?

    Overall this repo has a lot of tells of a low quality LLM generated app. Many issues with data structuring, naming etc.

  • flocked 3 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • dang 1 hour ago
      This looks like a great submission! But I wanted to let you know that some of your recent comments have been killed by our software because they've been classified as genai text, which is not allowed on HN itself (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079).

      (Of course it's fine to use AI tools! We use them heavily ourselves. Just please don't use them to generate or edit text to be read by fellow humans on Hacker News itself.)

      It's impossible to know for sure what was LLM generated or edited, but we have to rely on imperfect classifiers or else the site would be completely flooded by genai text, which is not what the community here wants to read, nor in the intended spirit of HN.

  • ls-a 1 hour ago
    [dead]