AppSurfer in action - android programs in browser


    About the AppSurfer project on Habré was mentioned when it was in a beta stage, and now I want to tell some technical details about the current version. In short, the project provides an opportunity to "touch" the Android program through a browser. In a previous article, it was called “YouTube for Android Applications” and this is a 100% correct definition.

    Registration is open, developers themselves upload their .apk files. The application must be on Google Play, meta data, an icon, screenshots and a description are taken from there. Programs are executed in a virtual environment and their image is transferred to a Flash player in a browser.

    We don’t know exactly how the virtual machines are organized, but judging by this quote, there is a cluster with a certain number of Android x86 instances, from where the video is streamed:
    Apps dependent on ARM native libraries need to compile their app on android x86. Then it will start running on appsurfer widget. To compile your app on android x86 please refer to porting document.


    Each person who opens the link is given a session of 10 minutes alone with the selected program. Fonts suggest ICS or a similar version (in fact, native x86 support too). Supported by a change in orientation, sound, GPS, the choice of user location on the map, network access. Interestingly, 3d graphics are correctly displayed, and even banners. Localization, multi-touch and some other features are not supported. Naturally, the program should run on x86, i.e. be fully in Java or JNI modules must be rebuilt under x86. At the same time they write about possible crashes using Google Play Billing.

    My experiments have shown that OpenGL ES is supported at a good level, there are no complaints about resolution, speed, aspect ratio, DPI. The window of the player is a fixed size of 480x320. By the size of the banner on the screen and aspect ratio, most likely the resolution of the system is 720x480. With this resolution, the screenshots look a little stretched, but the programs themselves fit normally. Of course, more details could be obtained by sending a utility to Appsturfer to extract system parameters, but this is at the discretion of the Habrovsk citizens. :) It’s hard to say how many applications are in the system now, but it’s already clearly over 50, as it was in September. Paid programs are also found, as if in trial mode, without restrictions (except for the small browser window and the limit of 10 minutes).




    The player itself can be embedded in a blog page or sent to friends.
    What is unknown is whether there will be commercial solutions based on this technology, for example, versions of android games for social networks.

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