In this short tutorial, I'll show you how you can use mobile apps for Android on your PC Desktop, but first, let me tell you how it happened that I found this solution.
Taking photos with my Android mobile phone, I saw there are many free applications I could play with to edit them. I tried some of them and like it.
Then I thought it would be even better if I could find their alternatives for PC as I have a lot of photos stored there or on CDs and USBs so that I could edit them too. I found some options, but usually they didn't have all the features I was already used to, or I would have to use two or three of them to complete all the functionalities I had in one Android app.
My search ended up instead with some PC alternative for Android mobile apps with the solution called Android Emulator.
Android Emulators are programs or applications that let us use our favorite mobile applications or even play favorite games on PCs and Laptops ran on Windows.
Android Emulator which I'm going to show you here is called BlueStacks and it would allow you to run Android apps on your Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10.
The version you would be able to use in few easy steps and which I tested is BlueStaks 2. So, let's start it.
- You may download BlueStaks 2 from here.
- The file you are going to download is an exec file. When downloaded, just double-click on it and follow the installation process.
- By following instructions, you would be prompted to create an account with BlueStaks. Account creation is free. The easiest way to create an account with BlueStaks is by using your existing Google account or by creating a new one (what you would be offered through the process as well).
- During the BlueStaks account creation and configuration, you will be asked to enable App Sync. Enabling app sync is necessary to provide the proper functionality of Google Play where from you will install wanted Android Apps.
- After that, you are ready to go. Have in mind that the browser window inside which BlueStaks runs would look and show functionalities (buttons etc.) somewhat like your mobile phone.
Go to 'Home' where you will find Google Play icon, click on it and from Google Play store download any application you want.
In an example of the following photo editing from the original on the left, I used PhotoLab Picture Editor, same as the for the above picture where I put my photo into the book.
For putting all three photos into the frame, I used Photo Collage - Collage Maker.
For this 'frame in frame' photo of my daughter's long hair, I used Pip Camera-Photo Editor.
From the original photo of my daughter and her husband on the beach that I took before they got married, I wanted to create a wedding anniversary congratulations card.
To manage to create the following picture, I used, same as for the first photo, PhotoLab Picture Editor.
Posted on Monday, July 10, 2017