AppSurfer in action - android programs in the browser

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

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

We don’t know exactly how 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 already streaming:

Apps for Android on android x86. Then it will start running on appsurfer widget. To compile your app on android x86 please refer to the porting document.

Each opened link is given a session for 10 minutes in private with the selected program. Fonts suggest ICS or a similar version (in fact, native x86 support, too). Supported change of orientation, sound, GPS, the choice of the user's location on the map, access to the network. Interestingly, 3d graphics are displayed correctly, and even banners. Localization, multi-touch and some other features are not supported. Naturally, the program should run on x86, i.e. To be completely Java or JNI modules must be rebuilt under x86. At the same time they write about possible crashes using Google Play Billing.
')
My experiments showed that OpenGL ES is supported at a good level, there are no complaints about resolution, speed, aspect ratio, DPI. Window player fixed size 480x320. By the size of the banner on the screen and the aspect ratio, most likely the resolution of the system is 720x480. With this resolution, the screenshots look a bit stretched, but the programs themselves fit normally. Of course, more details could be obtained by sending the utility to retrieve system parameters to Appsturfer, but this is already at the discretion of the habrovchan. :)



It's hard to say how many applications are in the system now, but obviously more than 50, as it was in September. Also there are paid programs, as if in trial mode, without restrictions (except for a small browser window and a limit of 10 minutes).
The player itself can be embedded in a blog page or sent to friends.
What is unknown is whether it will be commercial solutions based on this technology, for example, versions of android games for social networks.