To install from your pre-established library of Android apps, you’ll need to click “My Apps and Games” at the top of the list. Since you previously logged into Google Play when first launching the app, you’ll see your standard number of options appear inside BlueStacks’ terminal, including your account name, your library of apps and games, and the ability to browse suggested categories like books, movies, and more. Use your mouse to select the horizontal triple-lined menu button that will be familiar to any long-time Android user to open the sliding menu to the left of your screen. More importantly, however, is the ability to access your own account. You can search through apps at the top of the browser, select one of the options from the carousel of highlighted apps and games at the top of the screen, and scroll through the suggested games below. If you’ve ever used Google Play on a tablet, you’ll know what to expect here the app is identical. Unlike the BlueStacks App Store, Google Play is entirely unchanged here. When you enter your login information for Google Play, you’ll be redirected back to the app, now able to install apps and launch content from within the store. We’ll cover all that below, once BlueStacks is set up on your computer. That’s BlueStacks, now in its fourth version, a fully-featured Android emulator designed to run your games just as you would run typical PC games through Steam or other gaming clients, like Origin or .īlueStacks includes a full app software store, the ability to add friends to your list to play with, and even a social network called Pika World where you can connect with other BlueStacks players around you. There’s a number of Android emulators on the market today for Mac OS, including the Android emulator created by Google to help developers create and publish their apps, but when it comes to gaming, there’s really only one option available to use today.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking to play a game on your PC originally purchased on Android, or if you’d rather spend your time using Snapchat on your computer instead of your phone, emulation is the way that you can force all of your favorite Android apps to automatically start functioning on your Mac. Both are pretty cool to mess around with, especially if you have never seen what we old-timers used to use 30 years ago.Whatever the reason, there’s an easy way to install Android apps on Mac OS: emulation. His GitHub page shows that he also has a JavaScript Windows 95 emulator that also runs on all current computing platforms. Macintosh.js is not Rieseberg's first program to simulate old operating systems. Although the app includes Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, the emulator cannot connect to the internet.

It can also mount disk images and transfer files from your current drive into the virtual Macintosh.

In addition to what comes preinstalled, Rieseberg says that any compatible software from that timeframe is installable (if you can find them). Remember those? The classic Oregon Trail makes an appearance as does Duke Nukem 3D, Civilization II, Alley 19 Bowling, Damage Incorporated, and Dungeons & Dragons. The app includes several old software packages that one would have found for Macs of that era, including Photoshop 3, Premiere 4, Illustrator 5.5, StuffIt Expander, Apple's Web Page Construction Kit, and others.Ī handful of preinstalled game demos come with it, which Rieseberg culled from an old 1997 MacWorld Demo Disc. However, Rieseberg made the files and resources available on GitHub 'for educational purposes only.' Whether his disclaimer is enough to keep Apple's lawyers off his back remains to be seen. You won't find it on Apple's App Store because Cupertino bigwigs have not approved it. The Quadra 900 was launched in 1991, so we're stepping back almost 30 years. It is essentially a virtual machine that emulates a 1990's pre-PowerPC era Macintosh Quadra 900 equipped with a Motorola processor. The app is called 'macintosh.js.' The '.js' suffix is appropriate, since the entire program is written in JavaScript. The software runs on current iterations of macOS as well as Windows and Linux operating systems. Well, at least from one of its creators.įelix Rieseberg, a senior staff engineer at Slack, has developed an app that emulates Mac OS 8. Those were the days: Have you ever found yourself missing the old Macintosh days? There's an app for that, and it comes from the most unlikely source-Slack.

Mac emulator app