As the name says for itself, it’s only an app player, no Android operating system user interface at all. The home screen of the program features an ugly font (looks ugly because by default BlueStacks is launched in fullscreen mode) and simple icons.
Installing apps are not as easy as with Youwave, but there’s a workaround found on some forums/blogs that describe how to manually install apps from apks. The trick is to double click on .apk, and when a window box asks for which program to open this file with, select the one which to choose from a list of installed programs, another window box will appear, click on browse to navigate to the installed location of BlueStacks (by default it’s in “hardiskletter/Program Files/BlueStacks” or for 64 bit versions of Windows it’s in “hardiskletter/Program Files (x86)/BlueStacks”) then select the HD-ApkHandler.exe. Something like this should appear:
But with me, after few seconds that window just closed and the HD-ApkHandler.exe stayed in processes list and never came back to say that it successfully installed the .apk.
Concerning the apps currently present by default in the alpha version, BlueStacks needs internet access to be able to run them.
The only advantages over Youwave are a free available version and that the beta should have a larger number of compatible apps as it will be able to play angry birds.
Bluestacks recap details:
Has a free and a pro version (price not communicated) coming soon.
Still in alpha version and beta will be released in somewhere in March 2012
Must be connected to the internet to have the apps running
Cannot install apps manually with an .apk
Is only an app player, therefore no full featured Android emulator is available
Beta version promises to play Angry Birds, therefore it should have greater apps compatibility than Youwave
Has support for multi-player online games and saving game progress
DOWNLOAD Alpha version (Windows only. Alpha version not supposed to be available, but link accidentally found while typing “angry birds bluestacks” on google)
