Google announce runtime to run Android apps on Chrome OS

Today, Google has announced App Runtime for Chrome beta using which developers can run their Android applications in Google’s Chrome OS. Known as ARC, the new runtime is in developer preview and you can download from here.

Developers can start testing the application in ARC Welder by uploading the APK. Check Publishing Your App guidelines for more details. Devs can also file a bug from here if they face any issue with ARC. Testing the application will need the APK, computer with Chrome browser version 40 or higher and ARC Welder app.

Best practices (as per Google)

When testing your APK on ARC, developers have passed along these helpful tips:

• Use Tablet or Maximized for your form factor and Landscape for your orientation.
• Be sure your app works well for touch and non-touch Chromebooks.
• If you need to check if your app is running on Chrome OS, look for chromium as the android.os.Build.BRAND and android.os.Build.MANUFACTURER.
• Getting logs:
  • On a PC, you can get logs from your app by running plugin.shell(‘adbd‘) in the JavaScript console (chrome://inspect/#apps) and then running either adb logcat or adb pull /data/data/package_name/path/to/your/log.txt from the Android SDK tools.
  • On a Chromebook, where adb isn’t available right now, run either plugin.shell(‘logcat‘) or plugin.shell(‘cat /data/data/package_name/path/to/your/log.txt’) directly in the JavaScript console (chrome://inspect/#apps).
• To enable Google Play services, read more.
• Since ARC is in Beta, it doesn’t support all of Google Play Services yet. However, here are some available APIs:
  • Auth (OAuth2)
  • GCM
  • Google+ sign-in
  • Maps
  • Location
  • Ads
• To ensure compatibility with all users, package and test your app on the Chromebook Stable channel.

Source