When using Android Emulators of any variety, you may find yourself looking to download the Google Play APK, formerly known as the Android Market APK. You can then either install the APK file directly from your Android device or use my previously outlined methods for installing apps on your Android Emulator from your PC by using ADB. Here's how to get your hands on a Google Play APK...
The Android-x86 emulator, while powerful and fast, leaves something to be desired when it comes to actually installing apps. Since the Google Play store is only available for licensed products, it is inaccessible from the default installation of Android-x86. Fortunately, there are a few other methods you can use to install apps on your Android emulator.
Once you've installed and set up your Android x86 emulator in VirtualBox, there are a few important hardware keys you may be curious about. Since the Home, Menu, and Back keys are not physically available on your virtual machine, here's how you access them.
Home: Windows Key
Menu: Menu Key (between Alt and Ctrl)
Back: ESC
Vol Up: Vol Up Key
Vol Down: Vol Down Key
Dolphin Browser HD is bar none one of my favorite apps for the Android platform. It's fast, smooth, versatile, and has a wide variety of plugins available for download. Now, with its new Dolphin Sonar technology you can surf the web faster than ever simply by using your voice....
Getting the Android-x86 emulator networked properly from within VirtualBox has proven to be more of a challenge than I'd anticipated. Fortunately, I've figured out exactly which steps need to be taken in order to successfully get Android-x86 to connect to the Internet from within VirtualBox...
1. Get rid of long distance calls.
2. Get rid of your texting plan.
3. Turn off your phone while at your desk.
4. Use Android widgets on your PC.
5. Avoid buying an expensive Android device.
While BlueStacks is probably the easiest way to go about testing Android apps in an emulator on your PC, it does not allow you to play around with the core settings that make up the Android operating system. The Android-x86 project takes it one step further to give you the full Android experience through an emulator. In order to get the Android-x86 emulator for your PC, you'll have to do a few things first...