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Android apps on windows phone

Hi guys,
I'm currently using an iPhone as my primary phone and android as a secondary one. I want to shift to windows phone (mango) but there are a few apps on the android not available on winmo which I can't live without. Is there any way to run android apps on the windows mobile the same way(or ANY way) its done on the blackberry play book?
Thanks

I don't think there's any. But there are alternate apps.

Android apps on WP7 would be incredibly difficult, though theoretically it could be done with enough effort.
Most Android apps use Dalvik (a dialect of Java). This is totally incompatible with the Silverlight/C# that WP7 apps use, but there are enough similarities between them that it might be possible to build a tool that either translates the Dalvik instructions to MSIL (the binary that compiling C# produces) at launch, or dynamically interprets it (the latter would be very slow, though).
However, even with purely Dalvik apps, there are other problems. WP7 apps are limited to a very restrictive sandbox, with no access to the vast majority of the filesystem (for example). Android apps, by comparison, have a great deal of access to the device they run on, so even a very simple app may expect to have permissions that wouldn't be available on WP7. Instead, attempts to access restricted parts of the filesystem would have to be "virtually" redirected within the sandbox. This is possible in many cases, but a *lot* of work to code and has all kinds of weird edge cases.
Additionally, Android apps have a very different runtime model from WP7 apps. The biggest change is in how they handle leaving the foreground; WP7 apps are either suspended or dehydrated, while Android apps often just keep running (they can elect to suspend, but aren't required to). WP7 does support background tasks (with strict limitations, at least if you stick to the official APIs), but moving the Android app runtime into those background tasks would be quite difficult.
Finally, there's the issue of hybrid apps (apps that use native code in addition to managed runtimes like Sliverlight or Dalvik). These are much more common on Android than on WP7 (at least, than on WP7 outside this webite). Android runs on a Linux kernel, using POSIX system calls and APIs. WP7 runs on a CE kernel, using win32 system calls and APIs. There's a very loose mapping from one to the other (see the Wine project for running Win32 apps on desktop Linux) but it adds a lot of overhead and would be another layer, at least as tricky as the managed part, to the difficulty of this project.
Short version: nope, sorry.

GoodDayToDie said:
Android apps on WP7 would be incredibly difficult, though theoretically it could be done with enough effort.
Most Android apps use Dalvik (a dialect of Java). This is totally incompatible with the Silverlight/C# that WP7 apps use, but there are enough similarities between them that it might be possible to build a tool that either translates the Dalvik instructions to MSIL (the binary that compiling C# produces) at launch, or dynamically interprets it (the latter would be very slow, though).
However, even with purely Dalvik apps, there are other problems. WP7 apps are limited to a very restrictive sandbox, with no access to the vast majority of the filesystem (for example). Android apps, by comparison, have a great deal of access to the device they run on, so even a very simple app may expect to have permissions that wouldn't be available on WP7. Instead, attempts to access restricted parts of the filesystem would have to be "virtually" redirected within the sandbox. This is possible in many cases, but a *lot* of work to code and has all kinds of weird edge cases.
Additionally, Android apps have a very different runtime model from WP7 apps. The biggest change is in how they handle leaving the foreground; WP7 apps are either suspended or dehydrated, while Android apps often just keep running (they can elect to suspend, but aren't required to). WP7 does support background tasks (with strict limitations, at least if you stick to the official APIs), but moving the Android app runtime into those background tasks would be quite difficult.
Finally, there's the issue of hybrid apps (apps that use native code in addition to managed runtimes like Sliverlight or Dalvik). These are much more common on Android than on WP7 (at least, than on WP7 outside this webite). Android runs on a Linux kernel, using POSIX system calls and APIs. WP7 runs on a CE kernel, using win32 system calls and APIs. There's a very loose mapping from one to the other (see the Wine project for running Win32 apps on desktop Linux) but it adds a lot of overhead and would be another layer, at least as tricky as the managed part, to the difficulty of this project.
Short version: nope, sorry.
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That was quite disheartening for the OP
But I liked the thorough explanation.

for curiosity, which apps are you looking for?

Thanks a million for the detailed reply. I can give up on this now otherwise would have gone crazy searching. As for the apps I wanted to use Rako which basically controls the lighting in my house and creston media which controls my theatre. These I can't live without.
Additional ones would be anonymous email and sms bomb.( to bug my friends)

as for the lighting you got me..
but for media the xbox (if you have one) companion controls my whole xbox media experience from audio (zune), movies (integrated movie player streaming from my pc)..

What about this - http://wp7mapping.interoperabilitybridges.com/Library?source=Android
Can't this be used?!

buffalosolja42 said:
but for media the xbox (if you have one) companion controls my whole xbox media experience from audio (zune), movies (integrated movie player streaming from my pc)..
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Crestron controls my theater as a whole i.e lights, projector, blu ray etc. I just need to press 1 button and lights dim, screen comes down, blurry starts playing and so on. For the xbox controller its only for the xbox

buffalosolja42 said:
but for media the xbox (if you have one) companion controls my whole xbox media experience from audio (zune), movies (integrated movie player streaming from my pc)..
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drupad2drupad said:
What about this - http://wp7mapping.interoperabilitybridges.com/Library?source=Android
Can't this be used?!
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Okay im a noob and i have noooo idea what that is

drupad2drupad said:
What about this - http://wp7mapping.interoperabilitybridges.com/Library?source=Android
Can't this be used?!
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That is just for developers who want to port their app.

jessenic said:
That is just for developers who want to port their app.
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Exactly! So yes, Android app can come to WP, only if developers are hard working to port it.
However, I haven't done more than making ROMs for WM, Themes for Android, but I am currently porting 2 apps from Android to WP. Honestly, all porting is made so dead easy that a little bit of English and Bing at hand, and you are off to a great start! It's slow process but anyone can port if they want to.

How About Android for Desktops...

Another discussion where I posted a version of this led me to thinking that this might make for an interesting topic all on its own.
How would you envision a port of android made specifically for Desktop/Laptop environments, and do you think such an OS would be appealing to the average user?
_______________________________
As I envision it, ChromeOS should be folded into Android 4.0 and Google should build a version of the combined OS for Desktops.
The idea would be to create a common ecosystem of apps and usage environment accross multiple device categories, ad have it all interconnected through Google products and other apps running in the background.
I envision something that boots instantly right into ChromeOS while the rest of the Android system boots up in the background, thus allowing you virtually immediate cloud based functionality on the desktop. You could even choose to ONLY boot into chrome, say if you needed to look up something quickly online and didn't want to fully turn on a computer that has been turned off.
The chrome side of things would be very similar to ICS for tablets and would be deeply linked to all things google as well as relying on versions of the same Google apps that run on mobile, but optimized for ICS and taking advantage of larger screen dimensions. I envision touch interface to be retained for those who have touch sensitive screens, but also better keyboard and touchpad/mouse controls than currently exist. Lastly I would bundle a Google fork of Libre office specifically designed to have deep automatic integration with Google docs and Google+, but allowing users to have local editing control.
I would love to have such a system and have a common ecosystem between my phone, tablet and desktop/laptop, much how Apple currently does with IOs devices and MacOS and how Microsoft is planning to do with Windows 8 and WP8. unlike those ecosystems, this would run variants of the same OS, as opposed to different OSs made to work together, thus being able to take advantage of current built up knowledge and the existing android market.
Imagine if Google did the entire thing open sourced and released it to desktop and laptop OEMs.
A guy can dream right? If only there was a way to have a bunch of people pitch it to Google.
What do you guys think and how would you envision such an OS?

Android is already going to be merged with the Linux kernel in version 3.3 (with improved power management in 3.4)

nejc121 said:
Android is already going to be merged with the Linux kernel in version 3.3 (with improved power management in 3.4)
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you sure about that? From what I've read Android is going to provide it's drivers and both Android and linux are going to provide patches to each other's kernels (with Power management being addressed in later versions of the linux kernel (3.4?). The Android kernel will remain (at least for now) a fork of the linux kernel.
Still that doesn't really address the subject of this thread.

Santeno said:
As I envision it, ChromeOS should be folded into Android 4.0 and Google should build a version of the combined OS for Desktops.
I envision something that boots instantly right into ChromeOS while the rest of the Android system boots up in the background, thus allowing you virtually immediate cloud based functionality on the desktop.
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Click to collapse
Yeah i too dream of Google using all the OS & games tech experience they have gained from Android to bootstrap a full desktop OS.
My personal fantasy is that the under no circumstances include any of the Chrome Cloud based nonsense. But focus quite heavily on games and multimedia, offer an OS that delivers content & gaming rather than try going head to head on productivity (where they would get owned).
Am not going to go into my objections to the cloud concept, lots of geeks my age & older well remember the mainframe model from the 70's and the cloud suffers many of the same inherent flaws IMHO.
I addition my fantasy involves ARM leveraging the experience with the multi-cores they have developed to produce an ARM desktop CPU arrays, as am a big fan or clusters and arrays, render farms etc.
I have to confess being serious i don't see either happening since both would be attempting to breaking into markets they are inexperienced in and where entrenched competitors already have a tough obstacle course laid out, plus pretty deep war chests.
But the main issue with a Google desktop OS, IMHO to succeed, i think it would have to be capable of some kind of half decent x86 emulation ........... But hey we are talking 'The Brothers Grimms Tales of Silicone Valley' here anyways.

Its possible to do so now, albeit not the same experince you get on your phone or tablet due to lack of driver support Its how i checked out 4.0 before I got it on my Asus Transformer Prime. Worth a try!
(Im new to XDA so I cannot post links, however google "android x86 download" and its the first link.)

There are ready is a port of android that works on desktops that these guys are working on over at http://www.android-x86.org/.

Advice on using Screenless Android Phone for IoT device

I would like to create an IoT device by buying new, cheap android phones, strip them down and remove the screen, rebox into my own physical box, install a custom ROM without any bloatware (and that will boot without a screen!), and install my android app on the device to do stuff.
An example of a purpose for this could be a GPS tracker for a car. The box would be placed in the car, and record GPS and accelerometer readings, posting these readings back to a central server via the cellular network. (This is just a random example, so don't focus too much on the detail of this, but there are thousands of uses for a IoT board with the sensor, CPU, RAM, storage, and connectivity capabilities of a budget android smartphone)
The reason I want to use existing phones is that they are wonderful, mass produced, cheap devices with a variety of sensors I can use.
The reason I want to use Android is because it is because of the customization ability, and the mature development ecosystem.
To me, it seems an obvious thing to do, but I don't seem to be getting much joy trying to search for examples of this sort of thing (either here, or on the internet in general).
So some questions:
1. General thoughts? (Good idea? Am I missing some fundamental problem?)
2. What are the challenges of running Android without a screen connected?
3. Are there any custom ROMs you know of that specialize in this sort of thing?
(I've seen Google Brilo, but it still seems a bit early yet, and I really like the idea of just using the standard Android SDK to develop the app - and the abundance of help and information that comes with it)
Thanks!

Good OS to override Chromecast with Google TV for tactile efficiency (pretty as well)

If I go ahead and root Chromecast with Google TV with a different OS - what should I use? Kodi?, Odin?, Linux Distro? I am unhappy with the default setup after using my network dongle to find out how slow the apps load downloaded onto my SD drive in the dongle - I would be waiting 5 years or so for the Kernel to develop. The organization of the apps is okay but I would like a system I can customize for ease of use as well as being able to challenge myself to open apps that I downloaded but never use even though I wanted them as legit (sort of go to) main apps in the first place. So I am looking for ease of use and to challenge myself to run different apps as an organizational exercise all in one menu screen. I like pretty. Beauty, ease of use, aesthetics and layout are all to be considered.
Where are links to some resources about Kodi and what people did with them including layout and features? I am doing this purely for audio and and video apps so I don't need bloat or other unnecessary features.
Is Odin a way to go for design for the same principles (audio being as well as good looking layout with ease of use). Is Kodi better in this feature?
What about Linux OS systems? I don't need all the full OS features so they are basically bloatware with the fact that Lite Systems will provide the basic functionality only needing to serve audio and video with the necessary Android OS abilities for the piece of hardware.

[Firefly] [ROCKCHIP] [ITX-3588J] ITX-3588J ARM Android/Linux Dual "Deskphone" Progress

First off, I wanted to say I posted a few threads about this thing here asking questions about stuff I needed to get it working in the way I'd like and I'd want to thank you because I have made a lot of progress in getting it to be what I'd like it to be. I also don't know if this is the best forum to post this report because it's neither a question nor necessarily a tutorial but rather a summary and description of work already done so far, and especially because this device, while it sure runs Android (very well!) does not fit into any of the categories on this site neatly.
The story so far
This post concerns my experience working with the ITX-3588J, a board released just a few months ago by the Chinese manufacturer Firefly (or T-Chip Intelligent Technology Co. Ltd, based in Zhongshan) that is in the coveted mini-ITX form factor which means it can actually fit into a small-size desktop computer case and indeed has enough compute power to theoretically - and perhaps not so theoretically! - function as an honest desktop system with an ARM processor: namely the - also very new - Rockchip RK3588 system-on-a-chip.
About two months ago, I was looking into acquiring a new kind of computer to replace my somewhat longer on the tooth x86 machine that would be compact, low-power, and easy to transport while also being a fully capable desktop. And I certainly didn't want Apple. I had seen some very small form x86 desktops before, but I also knew there were many boards - like Raspberry Pi - that featured the ARM processor. Not content with the Pi, which is still very weak for this application at least when compared against modern software, I wanted to see if there was something else by now in a similar vein, and when I saw this board I thought it was an amazing option, esp. given I have not yet found a peer. Many ARM single-board devices exist but this is the only one I've found so far that looks to be in a proper desktop form factor and sporting a processor powerful enough to work at that level.
So I got the board, a case, and - noting it had SATA ports - a cheap 250 GB SSD, and put it all together ... and fired it up! And to my surprise, it booted up Android! Which was a real shocker because I generally thought this'd be like another PC board, not having had much experience with this ecosystem beyond phones, so that it would just give the usual "OS not found" stuff. Nope - pre-loaded on the board. Very minimal, very bare-bones though, not even the Google Play and similar essentials required for a usable Android experience. Yet with the little bit I had, I couldn't help but notice it was extremely fluid, responsive, and snappy, moreso than my aging 2018 era x86 box. Moreover, it was very, very interesting (and exciting!) to see Android booted onto a full-size monitor screen like Linux or Microsoft Windows - and actually and surprisingly, to see that it didn't look and feel all that bad!
However, of course, I wanted more. First, I wanted a fully-featured installation of Android. Second, I wanted to run Linux on it - especially given that, a short while later, I found that the board manufacturers were offering a stock Ubuntu 20.04 to be installable to it. Although, in the early stages, I didn't know how to do this at all, and then soon after learned how to reflash the embedded MMC chip to change the OS. And I did so, trying the Ubuntu and finding it also very performant, but not liking either that it was not quite the newest version but also more that it was mutually exclusive with Android - so far.
And that would begin a long - and at many times frustrating, especially given how much information out there is not at all tuned to a device like this being pressed into this application - learning journey toward exploring topics as diverse as how ARM processors and SoCs work under the hood, U-Boot, kernel features, the Firefly-Rockchip developer kit - and having to essentially single-handedly discover many of that kit's ins and outs given there was pretty much no documentation - and more, ultimately leading to where I've got it to now.
What it can do at this point
And that is, right now, I have it sitting here, loaded up with the stock Android 12 and Ubuntu 20.04 - with the former on the eMMC and the latter on the SSD hard drive. On the Android side, Google Play is now loaded and functional, though Google Chrome is not (it crashes with a "Telephony is null" exception for some reason, which seems to suggest for some reason it's trying to act like it's on a phone but isn't). Zoom - an app that I really, really wanted to have (and why I wanted to keep Android around on it) - works and works smoother and cleaner than my 2018 x86 Linux clunker. On the Ubuntu side, though, things are not yet coming - mostly because of seeming inability to use U-Boot to boot from the SSD. I managed to install GRUB, and given that Firefly's generous board SDK provides the full U-Boot source code was able to recompile it with the necessary "bootefi" command enabled which is not present in stock, but nonetheless alas this U-Boot seems to have its SATA support bugged or incomplete, because it would crash immediately upon trying to initialize that subsystem.
Where I'd like to go with it
Obviously, full dual boot of Android and Ubuntu, so getting U-Boot to boot the GRUB resident on the hard drive, is the biggest issue so far, and that means investigating whatever is the problem (or not?) in its SATA subsystem. Getting Google Chrome working on Android is another important step. Moreover - though it would cost extra money that I do not have right now - there's the very interesting possibility, owing to the fact that it has a built in M.2 slot on the board, and alluded to in the title - that the device could be made to act as a cell phone. And finally, the possibility of upgrading to a newer version of Ubuntu (ideally 22.04) - however from what I know so far, it looks like this will have to wait because the stock Linux kernels do not currently support the RK3588 fully - though I'd suggest the Linux kernel developers really should take a look at the SDK that came with this thing because it has lots of code in it including for the kernel, all under GPL.
Final note
One of the most interesting things I've learned from this project, and mentioned earlier, is just how well Android seems to work as a desktop OS. While there have apparently been some attempts to port it to x86, this is perhaps one of the first devices that is desktop-workable and which runs it natively. And one of the things I find that's nice about it is that ironically, because all the apps are designed for small screens, when they are run on a very big screen (and this monitor is not "very big" even by today's monitor standards, being a used and earlier LCD type), they are extremely easy on the eyes and have minimal UI clutter when compared to a typical desktop app on most Linux WMs and on MS Windows.
If you want to know more about the details, or anything else, feel free to ask any questions you might have!

UPDATE:
I believe I may have found an easier way to dual-boot Linux with Android, and that consists of configuring a custom ROM that will put both kernels, and GRUB, on the board's eMMC, while the rootfs for both OSes is placed on the hard disk. Will be seeing how it works.

UPDATE:
I have almost completed the custom ROM! I have now both Android and at least the base system for Ubuntu 20.04 (Kernel 5.10.66) bootable with Android now storing user data on the hard drive; though I'm still running into some hardware initialization issues in the latter that are keeping me from actually installing the desktop system. With regard to the Ubuntu system, there is some interesting issue in that for some reason the provided SDK kernel, which I had to rebuild, seems to build more Android-like because it wants to look in "/vendor" for some things related seemingly to the networking facilities, and it is possible this is preventing me from bringing up wifi, which I need in order to download the rest of the system.
But lots of progress overall - it seems that a full-fledged ARM desktop running simultaneously Android and Ubuntu is within reach to be wrung from this board!

Ignore my request for an update in another post. Seems you like you moving along. I don't need dual boot, just a working Android 12 with GPlay and Chrome. Did you get Chrome to work?

mebalzer said:
Ignore my request for an update in another post. Seems you like you moving along. I don't need dual boot, just a working Android 12 with GPlay and Chrome. Did you get Chrome to work?
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Thanks. Yeah, I want to say that I have pretty successfully gotten Android 12 working on it for sure, but Ubuntu is proving much more difficult due to graphics support issues, and I'm not sure if it will be possible until RK3588 is supported in the mainline Linux kernel tree which is still something under development. And yes! I got Chrome to work Everything works, actually - it's great as an Android system, though obviously Android is kinda funny to use as a desktop OS. I am wondering if I can't get a "pseudo" Linux using something like Linux Deploy in lieu of running it natively, at least until the kernel development catches up with this new processor.
(FWIW, I'm posting this post from that machine while it is running A12. )
Good to see someone else is interested in it, though. What are you planning on using yours for?

Insofar as getting Android 12 to work w/GApps - it depends on if you want to do it purely on the eMMC or you want to also put user data on an attached hard drive like I did. In either case, the best option, I feel, is to create a custom ROM - I could provide custom ROMs for it for download, but don't know because of Google's licensing conditions around the GApps and have heard of people getting in trouble with Google for distributing custom ROMs for phones that have GApps in them. You basically need to unpack the stock Android image, unpack the "super.img", then load the apps from a package like NikGApps into the "product" partition (NOT "oem" - that was a big mistake), then repack everything and flash to the eMMC again. You will need the board SDK from Firefly for all this as it has the custom ROM-packing and flashing tools.
Alternatively, it is possible to manually install the NikGApps GApps using the Android console - as it's a fully unlocked system, obtaining root access is trivial: just put it into Developer mode and you will find the root access in the "Developer options..." menu under "System".

Shimmy99 said:
Insofar as getting Android 12 to work w/GApps - it depends on if you want to do it purely on the eMMC or you want to also put user data on an attached hard drive like I did. In either case, the best option, I feel, is to create a custom ROM - I could provide custom ROMs for it for download, but don't know because of Google's licensing conditions around the GApps and have heard of people getting in trouble with Google for distributing custom ROMs for phones that have GApps in them. You basically need to unpack the stock Android image, unpack the "super.img", then load the apps from a package like NikGApps into the "product" partition (NOT "oem" - that was a big mistake), then repack everything and flash to the eMMC again. You will need the board SDK from Firefly for all this as it has the custom ROM-packing and flashing tools.
Alternatively, it is possible to manually install the NikGApps GApps using the Android console - as it's a fully unlocked system, obtaining root access is trivial: just put it into Developer mode and you will find the root access in the "Developer options..." menu under "System".
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Thanks I will keep this in mind. See my reply to you other reply on another post as well.

I would to run gplay as well please send me instruction the nikapps github doesnt say nothing