Steve Ballmer also agrees with the fact that for Windows 10 Mobile to be a success, it has to run An - Polidicks

[url]http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/2/9838810/ballmer-android-apps-windows-project-astoria[/url] [quote=The Verge]Last month The Verge reported that Project Astoria, Microsoft's plan to bring Android apps to its Windows 10 Mobile platform, has been put on hold, but it seems one notable figure from the company's recent history would disagree with that decision. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's former CEO and its biggest individual shareholder, wasn't happy with current chief Satya Nadella's answer to a question about the lack of Windows phone apps at the company's annual shareholder meeting. The audience member was asking Nadella about what Microsoft plans to do about its lack of support for important mobile apps like Starbucks, according to Bloomberg. Nadella cited the company's effort to get developers to create universal apps across PC, mobile, and Xbox, but Ballmer said "That won't work." Instead, Windows phones need to be able to "run Android apps," he reportedly said. Under Microsoft's current plans, there'll still be a route for developers to port iOS apps to Windows.[/quote]

[quote]Microsoft plans to do about its lack of support for important mobile apps like Starbucks[/quote] uh Aside from that weird example and onto a serious note, how is this legal? And if it's not illegal, why? I mean, in the case that this is legal, why is, say, running Wii U games on a PC illegal?

[QUOTE=wauterboi;49242711]uh And if it's not illegal, why? I mean, in the case that this is legal, why is, say, running Wii U games on a PC illegal?[/QUOTE] It's not, as long as you aren't using ripped bios/firmware to do it, if I recall correctly

[QUOTE=wauterboi;49242711]uh Aside from that weird example and onto a serious note, how is this legal? And if it's not illegal, why? I mean, in the case that this is legal, why is, say, running Wii U games on a PC illegal?[/QUOTE] I don't recall Nintendo releasing an official Wii U emulator for PC. Google has an Android emulator in the Android dev kit and there are already multiple other Android emulators like Genymotion (with paid only features!) for PC that are perfectly legal.

That's what blackberry has been doing but it's not a very elegant solution since google play services don't work unless you apply a ton of patches and jump through a lot of hoops.

[QUOTE=wauterboi;49242711]uh Aside from that weird example and onto a serious note, how is this legal? And if it's not illegal, why? I mean, in the case that this is legal, why is, say, running Wii U games on a PC illegal?[/QUOTE] android is open source so i guess its legal that way.

It wouldn't be an emulator. Android apps run in a virtual machine called the "Android Runtime" (formerly, Android used a similar VM named Dalvik). The Android Runtime is not unlike the Java Virtual Machine, and because Android is open source, you can port the Android Runtime to whatever platform you'd like. There are unofficial PC ports like Bluestacks, and Google even has an official port that works in Chrome, allowing Android apps to run on ChromeOS (both x86 and ARM models). Before the official port, there was also an unofficial port of the Android Runtime for Chrome that did the same thing.

[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;49242985]It wouldn't be an emulator. Android apps run in a virtual machine called the "Android Runtime" (formerly, Android used a similar VM named Dalvik). The Android Runtime is not unlike the Java Virtual Machine, and because Android is open source, you can port the Android Runtime to whatever platform you'd like. There are unofficial PC ports like Bluestacks, and Google even has an official port that works in Chrome, allowing Android apps to run on ChromeOS (both x86 and ARM models).[/QUOTE] except Microsoft's implementation of astoria was literally like genymotion and the like it was a full Android system being run in a Hyper-V session

[QUOTE=Lyokanthrope;49242994]except Microsoft's implementation of astoria was literally like genymotion and the like it was a full Android system being run in a Hyper-V session[/QUOTE] They killed that project for a reason. Porting the Android Runtime alone is a far more elegant solution.

[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;49243005]They killed that project for a reason. Porting the Android Runtime alone is a far more elegant solution.[/QUOTE] I'm aware :v: But we'll see if they actually do that.

[QUOTE=Lyokanthrope;49243007]I'm aware :v: But we'll see if they actually do that.[/QUOTE] I mean, I can't imagine they'll make that same mistake twice. The Android Runtime for Chrome actually works fairly well, as do the unofficial projects like Bluestacks and such. It's even possible to get Google Play services working in the Android Runtime for Chrome port. The real issue might be that they probably can't legally support getting apps from the Google Play Store (they need Google's permission for that), and they probably don't want to rely on some third party app distributor like Amazon or Getjar. BlackBerry had that thing where developers could use a wrapper to easily port their Android apps to BlackBerry, but that didn't really work out because it relied on developers to actually do that for their app. Windows Mobile is facing the same issue.

[QUOTE=wauterboi;49242711]uh Aside from that weird example and onto a serious note, how is this legal? And if it's not illegal, why? I mean, in the case that this is legal, why is, say, running Wii U games on a PC illegal?[/QUOTE] It's only illegal if you do this with apps that require Google services in order to work at all, which there are almost none

[QUOTE=meppers;49243047]It's only illegal if you do this with apps that require Google services in order to work at all, which there are almost none[/QUOTE] Many paid apps require Google Play services because they use it as a sort of DRM, actually. That's not TOO many apps though. Microsoft's best bet is offering Amazon's app library; none of them require Google Play services, and it's a rather comprehensive compilation of Android apps. Arguably the best other than Google Play itself. That said, it'd cut into their own profits because Amazon would get all the profits, and it could further dissuade Windows phone app development. Why make a Windows phone app when you can support the platform by making an Android app?