Android Emulator For M1 Macbook

  

Just tried to run Android Studio (4.1.1) on Macbook Pro M1, it works, but: No emulators at this point. Can build and publish on Android Phone (Nexus 4a in my case) IntelliJ has some lags in performance on M1 (because it is not native, and Intel built), but feels pretty usable. Three months with M1 Macbook Air as a mobile developer. Self taught flutter developer with more than 3 years of experience. Being a flutter developer almost for three years, I always had to use virtual machines on my windows laptop to test and run flutter applications on ios device. It was always a terrible experience. Nov 26, 2020 Android emulator doesn't work on Apple M1 chip. Ask Question Asked 9 months ago. Active 23 days ago. Viewed 10k times 7 I've tried to run. Run the Android operating system on your PC to be able to install all sorts of mobile games and apps thanks to this list with the best Android emulators for Windows computers. Download, easily.

Using Android Studio Emulators in M1 Mac:

Previously, when M1 Macbooks were released, Android studio didn’t have any support for emulators. Google has released a different preview build for emulators. You can check this build here.

The problem with this preview build is that you can’t change the emulator device type. It works, but if you want to test your application on different device or different screen sizes, there was no other option available.

Recently, they released one change to the Android Studio SDK manager and downloading an extra emulator is no loger needed now.

In this post, I will quickly show you how to create Android Emulators on M1 chipset mac in Android Studio.

Testing your app on the emulator is in some ways faster and easier than doing so on a physical device. For example, you can transfer data faster to the emulator than to a device connected over USB. The emulator comes with predefined configurations for various Android phone, tablet, Wear OS, and Android TV devices. Recommended Reading.

How to do that:

For

First, make sure that you have the latest Android Studio installed. If you have 4.1.2 or later Android studio version, this will work.

  1. First, start AVD manager. If you haven’t created any AVD or android virtual device before, you will find it in Tools->AVD Manager.

  2. Click on Create new virtual device button. It will show you a list of different devices. You can select any of these phones.

  1. Click on next. It will show you a list of system images. Basically, it shows different images for different Android Versions that can be used with the current AVD. Make sure to select the ‘Other image’ tab. Images listed under this tab are designed for Macbook M1.

That’s all. It will create one emulator using that selected image. You can also create different virtual devices using the same image.

Macintosh OS or popularly known as Mac OS used by Apple on its Mac PC’s and Macbook’s is an awesome OS, with its awesome user-interface, and great features, wouldn’t it be more awesome if we are able to run Android on Mac os.? like WhatsApp on mac os, yes it’s possible by these unique Android Emulators , so let’s have a look on these 3 best Android Emulator for Mac OS’s

Bluestacks AppPlayer Android Emulator for Mac OS

  • Bluestacks AppPlayer is probably the Best Android Emulator available because it uses the unique “LayerCake” technology which allows android OS apps to be emulated and run without requiring an external Virtual Desktop App whatsoever.
  • Also Bluestacks contains inbuilt search manager which allows you to install any apk within itself.
  • The .apk files can be installed into Bluestacks from guest OS [Mac OS] itself, simply by double-clicking, as well as the apps can be launched directly from the MAC dashboard!
  • moreover Push Notifications of app installed in Bluestacks are pushed directly to the host OS, hence you can use chat applications like whatsapp and the MAC Os simultaneously and smoothly!
  • Bluestacks automatically takes up the internet connected to the Guest OS [mac] hence no need of configuring anything!
  • Bluestacks for MAC can be downloaded from either bluestacks.com or by Clicking here to download the Bluestacks .dmg file .

Droid4X

Droid4X is the sort of emulator designed for Power, and its the best android emulator for gaming be it for Mac OS or Windows.

  • It provides options to configure Keyboard as Controller for gaming.
    • Comes pre-rooted and with Google Play Store installed.
    • Simply, drag and drop the apk file to start the installation.

Andy OS

  • Andy OS by Andyroid.net is another great Android Emulator for Mac OS , but it requires Virtual Box to be preinstalled on the MAC.
  • Features of ANDY emulator include Google Play Store support inbuilt, none of the emulator has this feature inbuilt even for Windows builds!
  • Multi-Touch support – the word explains it all !
  • you can also use your phone as a controller for controlling / playing the games, the picture alongside explains it 🙂
  • Access the installed apps directly from the Desktop environment!
  • OpenGL hardware acceleration, Camera and Microphone all features supported!
  • You can download the MAC version of Andy from here –> The link will automatically redirect you depending on your OS —
  • Click here to download & get Andy Emulator for Mac OS X .dmg file .

Genymotion

  • One of the most striking features of Genymotion is unlike other Android Emulators it allows us to change the type of android device as well as android version we are using!!
  • This is a great feature and allows us to select a particular device as well as particular Android version which we want to emulate.
  • It also supports configuring the amount of resources e.g RAM ,harddisk to be allocated to the Android device is possible! Great feature if your are limited on hardware resources.
  • Directly supports networking through ethernet /Wi-Fi , emulates your connected connection directly so you can use internet directly in your emulated android.
  • ADB Support and it also supports OpenGL hardware acceleration so you can use your Android device fullscreen and play Games on your MAC!
  • Also supports drag and drop file transfer to the emulated SD Card 🙂 , supports Gyroscope,Light and accelerometer sensors too.
  • You need an account on Genymotion Cloud – to Download and deploy Genymotion android device .

Xamarin Android Player for MAC

Xamarin is yet another android emulator with variety of devices supported, it supports OpenGL, and virtualizes a device instead of emulating it.

  • This Virtualization increases speed of the emulator to a great extent!
  • Click here to download Xamarin Android Player for Mac.
  • The Configuration/installation instructions for Xamarin on Mac OS can be found here .

Emulators On M1 Mac

NOTE – You might want to check out this new emulator which runs directly inside Google Chrome Browser – ARChon! Android Emulator., thus it will work on Mac too!

So these were the Best 5 Android Emulators for Mac OS , besides these there are other options available too such as the Android SDK (Official) Emulator ,AndroVM , AndroLite but configuring official Android SDK is a tedious task and other two didn’t interest me much , you can check them out too..

Android Emulator For M1 Macbook Air

Hope you liked this post, if you have any doubts/queries/suggestions feel free to comment!