Can I run an android app on pc without emulator?

Question

Suppose I wanted to build a PC application but instead of that I'd make an Android app which does not access mobile only APIs. Can I run something like that on my PC? Do that by like running dalvik vm on a pc and then running the app in that? Is there another way to run an app on PC apart from using an emulator?

Answer 1

No there is no direct way of doing that. The only ways of doing it are by using an emulator like for example the one included in the Android SDK (Android Studio) or Bluestacks.

EDIT: But there is no way to run android apps without an emulator unless you want to write the dalvik vm for every cpu architecture yourself!

EDIT2: Quoting @XavierFalempin from the comments section:

There was also ARC welder on chrome to run some android apps. developer.chrome.com/apps/getstarted_arc

Answer 2

On Linux yes: https://anbox.io/

I checked win,mac support - there is no support and there is not plans for that.

But running Ubuntu in VirtualBox is not a problem :)

Answer 3

In order to run android apps on pc without any emulator you will need to install any Android based OS on your PC which will remove the emulation part and just run the apps directly on the PC and as a result you will get better performance. I would suggest you to try Prime OS as the development for this OS is going pretty well and you can post your query on their forums in order to get your issues resolved asap. They have 3 separate variants for old, newer and newest chipsets which makes it compatible with most of the systems. You can download it from here: https://www.primeos.in/download