Nowadays, it seems that the mobile market is becoming bigger than PC market. Although that is pretty hard to confirm, one thing we know for sure is that there are many applications for mobile devices that may be useful on our personal computer. Apps such as these serve to increase both functionality and productivity of the device they’re installed on. Android and iOS still remain as two of the biggest players on that market. Mobile phones that use Android as their operating system have a very large selection of apps that are available to them. To give you an example, there are apps that help you text, make calls, film something and so on. This list can go on for quite a while. These apps are useful for a number of reasons but their main purpose is to reduce the overall costs of using your smartphone. Without further ado, here is a short list of instructions and advices that can help you run your favorite Android apps on your computer.
3rd Party developers
Mobile developers can be divided into two groups: the ones that don’t bother with the potential PC port of their apps and the ones that do keep that in mind. One good example of the latter app is Viber, available both for mobile devices and PC.
Even if your desired app does not support PC as a platform, there are ways and means to get around that. For example, you can use a 3rd party app that acts as an emulator. In fact, a lot of mobile developers use PC for developing their apps (because it is more powerful and allows more options). So, you always have that option available for most of the existing applications.
BlueStacks
This is the most popular Android emulator that provides with the option to run the app on your PC. Of course, you have to download and install it first before you can use it. After that, you can search for any Android app using the search bar. Then, just download and install your desired app. That’s it, now you can run this app on your computer.
Some of the apps you can try on your PC:
- Hangouts
This is the latest iteration of Google Talk. With this app you can send messages (as well as videos) to other registered users. It also supports a video chat option. Android 4.4 even allows you to manage SMS and video chats with up to 12 other Google users.
This is the app that will come in handy for many people, I’m sure. It allows you to always stay connected and monitor various updates of your friends. This application lets you browse Facebook, chat with other users and change the settings of your account.
- Plume for Twitter
This is another popular app for all you Twitter lovers. It allows users to access their account, together with a number of settings, including the option to change your LED color for alerts that come from this app.