In practice, the Google Play Services dependencies and other walled-garden initiatives from Google will make this less useful than it could otherwise be. But still, this is really cool.
I guess, in practice this can also be likely be made to run google services, the same as they can run on custom ROMs. And it already lists Aurora store as a solution.
So it's definitely something for more tinkerer people, but still quite cool.
Soo many more things than banking apps at this point. Things as normal as looking at train schedules, grocery store catalogues, ordering a taxi... sometimes have SafetyNet DRM.
When you publish apps on Google Play, the Play Developer Console even nags you to use harder obfuscation and implement Google's DRM to, allegedly, protect yourself and your users.
Can the EU finally make this shit illegal? Oh wait, they're pusing for mandatory DRM too... Fuck.
...what steam devices? Steam Deck and Machine? I work in video games(at one of the largest publishers - worked at other two in the lasy few years) - and while we usually do some testing on the steam deck it's literally just to see if the windows version runs well. Full on Linux porting effort like Larian did for BG3 is very very rare and extremely hard to justify.
In your experience, is "Steam Deck Verified" attractive enough to fix any issues you might find when testing? I've been immensely curious about whether it's moved the needle at all
> Full on Linux porting effort like Larian did for BG3 is very very rare and extremely hard to justify
Given the zeitgeist, how realistic are the calls to “just get AI to do it”? I’ve been rattled by just how good some one-shot (or otherwise low-human-effort) Claude ports of some games are (and I don’t mean “decomps”, but instead where an existing open-source and already-cross-platform codebase is ported over to new targets like WASM+Canvas, like C&C Generals: the AI-bros are in full-force posting demos of their new ports on a nearly daily basis - so if it’s as easy as these people say, why aren’t we seeing it from the major publishers?
Handy for Minecraft players on Mac: windows players may be on Java or on bedrock versions, but mobile and console players are all only on bedrock. Being able to run the Android version on Mac means I can play with local console players or join a bedrock realm.
(There are compatibility workarounds if you run your own server but I don’t want the headache of doing so).
Perhaps one day Mojang will enable Macos users to run the iPad (bedrock) version of Minecraft as well..
Funnily, specifically for Minecraft Bedrock, there's such a project (implementing a limited/specialized compatibility layer) targeting Linux/macOS for few years now.
(Of course it's fine to use AI tools! We use them heavily ourselves. Just please don't use them to generate or edit text to be read by fellow humans on Hacker News itself.)
It's impossible to know for sure what was LLM generated or edited, but we have to rely on imperfect classifiers or else the site would be completely flooded by genai text, which is not what the community here wants to read, nor in the intended spirit of HN.
In practice, the Google Play Services dependencies and other walled-garden initiatives from Google will make this less useful than it could otherwise be. But still, this is really cool.
https://github.com/kksimp/Mac.apk/wiki/Google-Accounts-and-P...
I guess, in practice this can also be likely be made to run google services, the same as they can run on custom ROMs. And it already lists Aurora store as a solution.
So it's definitely something for more tinkerer people, but still quite cool.
Everything aside from apps with SafetyNet dependencies. Banking apps come to mind.
Soo many more things than banking apps at this point. Things as normal as looking at train schedules, grocery store catalogues, ordering a taxi... sometimes have SafetyNet DRM.
When you publish apps on Google Play, the Play Developer Console even nags you to use harder obfuscation and implement Google's DRM to, allegedly, protect yourself and your users.
Can the EU finally make this shit illegal? Oh wait, they're pusing for mandatory DRM too... Fuck.
Also, a lot of games. This is actually why I stopped playing Pokemon Go, and never picked up a worse gacha game habit haha
Optimist take: this will matter less over time as more developers start targeting Steam devices
...what steam devices? Steam Deck and Machine? I work in video games(at one of the largest publishers - worked at other two in the lasy few years) - and while we usually do some testing on the steam deck it's literally just to see if the windows version runs well. Full on Linux porting effort like Larian did for BG3 is very very rare and extremely hard to justify.
Most games run on Steam devices via Proton (Wine). You don't really need a native port in that case.
In your experience, is "Steam Deck Verified" attractive enough to fix any issues you might find when testing? I've been immensely curious about whether it's moved the needle at all
> Full on Linux porting effort like Larian did for BG3 is very very rare and extremely hard to justify
Given the zeitgeist, how realistic are the calls to “just get AI to do it”? I’ve been rattled by just how good some one-shot (or otherwise low-human-effort) Claude ports of some games are (and I don’t mean “decomps”, but instead where an existing open-source and already-cross-platform codebase is ported over to new targets like WASM+Canvas, like C&C Generals: the AI-bros are in full-force posting demos of their new ports on a nearly daily basis - so if it’s as easy as these people say, why aren’t we seeing it from the major publishers?
Can MicroG be ported?
Handy for Minecraft players on Mac: windows players may be on Java or on bedrock versions, but mobile and console players are all only on bedrock. Being able to run the Android version on Mac means I can play with local console players or join a bedrock realm.
(There are compatibility workarounds if you run your own server but I don’t want the headache of doing so).
Perhaps one day Mojang will enable Macos users to run the iPad (bedrock) version of Minecraft as well..
Funnily, specifically for Minecraft Bedrock, there's such a project (implementing a limited/specialized compatibility layer) targeting Linux/macOS for few years now.
There was a solution on macOS for quite some time (https://github.com/minecraft-linux/macos-builder/) but Apple is killing off the OpenGL frameworks to make it work.
Arguably not a bad use of a claude subscription, provided that it actually works.
Crazy I was the first to star on GitHub. I’m going to give this a try for some tinkering projects.
Reminds me of Google vs. Oracle lawsuit for API fair use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_....
Google v Oracle comes down to an argument over infringement when copying constants. IANAL but I would've said constants are facts and not protectable.
This is very cool! Next IOS.apk? ;)
macOS includes[0] a built-in iOS compatibility subsystem. PlayCover allows utilizing it for running arbitrary iOS apps.
[0]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple-silicon/runn...
This is awesome, now this needs to work on Windows
Windows had something like this (Windows Subsystem for Android) which worked really well until Microsoft went and killed it.
WSA was (or is, since still works unofficially) running Android in VM underneath.
BlueStacks has worked really well for me.
isn't BlueStacks full of chinese ads nowadays?
People take the iOS version of Fortnite and repackage it to run on Mac.
No app sandboxing? User files and settings stored in the /Applications/ folder, rather than the User’s home folder?
Couple issues with this right off the bat:
- Seemingly relies on the Java virtual machine for simulation -- no support for native ARM binaries?
- Stores data inside the .app
Looks like it will run native ARM just fine according to the readme?
Naming it Mac.apk is a poor choice. So it's Mac.apk.app?
Overall this repo has a lot of tells of a low quality LLM generated app. Many issues with data structuring, naming etc.
[flagged]
This looks like a great submission! But I wanted to let you know that some of your recent comments have been killed by our software because they've been classified as genai text, which is not allowed on HN itself (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079).
(Of course it's fine to use AI tools! We use them heavily ourselves. Just please don't use them to generate or edit text to be read by fellow humans on Hacker News itself.)
It's impossible to know for sure what was LLM generated or edited, but we have to rely on imperfect classifiers or else the site would be completely flooded by genai text, which is not what the community here wants to read, nor in the intended spirit of HN.