arkangelhfb
New Member
Step 1:
During my internet searches for the newer version of Gameboid Lite... I came across an interesting article about how to use your PC to test out apps you are making for Android... this is where I found another key to victory, although I didn't know it at the time. Believe it or not there are programs for your PC that will completely emulate an Android OS... and when run on your computer will in fact even be able to access the internet as if they where real devices, your mouse can even click on the Emulated Device's screen like it's a touch screen... in fact if you sign into your gmail account with the device it will even tell you if you have new mail. These Emulated devices however do not have the market on them, and do not really save apk files... but instead use an image file of an Android OS system to tell the emulator what programs the Device would be running. These Fake android devices also do not have the market app and it is impossible to transfer files from your computer to them or get files from them to your computer... meaning getting the market on them, or getting apk files off them is “next” to impossible... I say “next” to for a reason.
People, for the purpose of wanting to test out market apps, found a way to get the market on the “devices”. Once the market is on the Emulated device and you have a gmail account to long onto the market... you can get anything off the market you want onto the device. Problem is the device doesn't really save an APK file... as when you download it the Emulator is just taking a picture of what the device is and saving it as one large image file... again to me at first this was another brick wall... but it soon became an open door...
To get you started go here and follow the instruction...
How to Test Drive Google Android on Your PC Without Buying a Phone - How-To Geek
Once you have a working emulator running Android OS 1.6, that has internet access and can reach google.com with it's browser... go here and follow the instructions...
How To Enable the Android Market in the Google Android Emulator - How-To Geek (As a side note... I found bringing the img file to a device that already had been used once, and had internet access... to be the trick to it... have the device running when you put the file into it's folder, then closing the device... and bringing it back up... also scaling the display size to 4 or 5 helped in the display size after clicking run on the device... these instruction will make sense once you have started the process.)
Once you have done this you should have an Emulated Android Device that is running Android OS 1.6 and has access to the Android market... You Google account may also think you have a new phone... got a laugh out of this...
Step 2: We are going to need some Back Up... or at least to BackUp
Ok to put it simply... after step three is where I thought I had really been bested. The apps that I download didn't save anywhere I could get to them... and there was no way to get the apk files off the Emulated device as one, it wasn't a real device, and two, it was changing the files to not really be apk but just the big image file for the whole OS... I could even look through the device “/” because they don't have a app to do that... but wait did I just get the market...
After downloading the newest version of Gameboid Lite and getting it to work on the Emulated Android Device, I(and you should too...) went and found ASTRO, the free version and downloaded it. I was now able to look through the Emulated device's “/”. To my horror... “/system/media/sdcard” plain didn't exist...
Well I was back at step one... files on a Device... and no way at all to get to those files or do what I wanted with them... Finally I gave up... as the new programs downloaded simply do not make apk files anywhere on the Emulated Android Device... I tried grabbing an existing apk app I could find(a preloaded app that came with the emulator) and emailing it to myself. The email went through... but there was no attachment... phantom files... awesome...
Then with a flash of blind luck... I remembered something I read while browsing the internet on how to back APK file off of a phone or device(a rabbit hole I didn't have to go down, but might be useful for those of you that have other android devices) ... I thought for a moment that it wouldn't really matter but then an another thought hit me... just because the Emulated Android Device is doing weird things to the apk files that run apps... doesn't mean that the apps are being changed to stop there original functions...
ASTRO has a back up part of the application, one that writes apk backups, and while you cannot find the apps you download anywhere on the Emulated Android Device, run ASTRO – Hit menu on the Emulated Device's keyboard to bring up more options – Click Tools – Click Application manager/backup – and wow there are all the apps you have downloaded form the market and they have a nice little check mark by them for you to click if you want to back them up.
Click that mark then head to the top of the screen and click “BackUp”. ASTRO will copy the non apk file into apk files and place them in a non-existent internal SD-card. The path to your holy grail or clean usable apk files will be: /sdcard/backup/apps .
Step 3: You have dropped some time into this... guess it's time for a Drop Box... or an In Box
Now that you are staring at your goal right in the face we have a new problem... how to get those ripe apk files from the Emulated hell and onto you pc.
Well here is where you have some options... click and hold down the mouse button, over the apk file you want, till a box pops up... from the list of options click send... you will be given a choice of programs that could receive the file... by default you will only have once choice, Gmail... but I had thought ahead...
I had already downloaded Drop Box. Since the emulated device has internet, Drop Box does sync up if you have Drop Box on your PC, meaning you get those lovely apk files off that emulator easy as pie... I would also like to point out that selecting gmail for these apk files found in /sdcard/backup/apps will also work at this point as the files will no longer ghost out on you... However Drop Box is a bit more clean
During my internet searches for the newer version of Gameboid Lite... I came across an interesting article about how to use your PC to test out apps you are making for Android... this is where I found another key to victory, although I didn't know it at the time. Believe it or not there are programs for your PC that will completely emulate an Android OS... and when run on your computer will in fact even be able to access the internet as if they where real devices, your mouse can even click on the Emulated Device's screen like it's a touch screen... in fact if you sign into your gmail account with the device it will even tell you if you have new mail. These Emulated devices however do not have the market on them, and do not really save apk files... but instead use an image file of an Android OS system to tell the emulator what programs the Device would be running. These Fake android devices also do not have the market app and it is impossible to transfer files from your computer to them or get files from them to your computer... meaning getting the market on them, or getting apk files off them is “next” to impossible... I say “next” to for a reason.
People, for the purpose of wanting to test out market apps, found a way to get the market on the “devices”. Once the market is on the Emulated device and you have a gmail account to long onto the market... you can get anything off the market you want onto the device. Problem is the device doesn't really save an APK file... as when you download it the Emulator is just taking a picture of what the device is and saving it as one large image file... again to me at first this was another brick wall... but it soon became an open door...
To get you started go here and follow the instruction...
How to Test Drive Google Android on Your PC Without Buying a Phone - How-To Geek
Once you have a working emulator running Android OS 1.6, that has internet access and can reach google.com with it's browser... go here and follow the instructions...
How To Enable the Android Market in the Google Android Emulator - How-To Geek (As a side note... I found bringing the img file to a device that already had been used once, and had internet access... to be the trick to it... have the device running when you put the file into it's folder, then closing the device... and bringing it back up... also scaling the display size to 4 or 5 helped in the display size after clicking run on the device... these instruction will make sense once you have started the process.)
Once you have done this you should have an Emulated Android Device that is running Android OS 1.6 and has access to the Android market... You Google account may also think you have a new phone... got a laugh out of this...
Step 2: We are going to need some Back Up... or at least to BackUp
Ok to put it simply... after step three is where I thought I had really been bested. The apps that I download didn't save anywhere I could get to them... and there was no way to get the apk files off the Emulated device as one, it wasn't a real device, and two, it was changing the files to not really be apk but just the big image file for the whole OS... I could even look through the device “/” because they don't have a app to do that... but wait did I just get the market...
After downloading the newest version of Gameboid Lite and getting it to work on the Emulated Android Device, I(and you should too...) went and found ASTRO, the free version and downloaded it. I was now able to look through the Emulated device's “/”. To my horror... “/system/media/sdcard” plain didn't exist...
Well I was back at step one... files on a Device... and no way at all to get to those files or do what I wanted with them... Finally I gave up... as the new programs downloaded simply do not make apk files anywhere on the Emulated Android Device... I tried grabbing an existing apk app I could find(a preloaded app that came with the emulator) and emailing it to myself. The email went through... but there was no attachment... phantom files... awesome...
Then with a flash of blind luck... I remembered something I read while browsing the internet on how to back APK file off of a phone or device(a rabbit hole I didn't have to go down, but might be useful for those of you that have other android devices) ... I thought for a moment that it wouldn't really matter but then an another thought hit me... just because the Emulated Android Device is doing weird things to the apk files that run apps... doesn't mean that the apps are being changed to stop there original functions...
ASTRO has a back up part of the application, one that writes apk backups, and while you cannot find the apps you download anywhere on the Emulated Android Device, run ASTRO – Hit menu on the Emulated Device's keyboard to bring up more options – Click Tools – Click Application manager/backup – and wow there are all the apps you have downloaded form the market and they have a nice little check mark by them for you to click if you want to back them up.
Click that mark then head to the top of the screen and click “BackUp”. ASTRO will copy the non apk file into apk files and place them in a non-existent internal SD-card. The path to your holy grail or clean usable apk files will be: /sdcard/backup/apps .
Step 3: You have dropped some time into this... guess it's time for a Drop Box... or an In Box
Now that you are staring at your goal right in the face we have a new problem... how to get those ripe apk files from the Emulated hell and onto you pc.
Well here is where you have some options... click and hold down the mouse button, over the apk file you want, till a box pops up... from the list of options click send... you will be given a choice of programs that could receive the file... by default you will only have once choice, Gmail... but I had thought ahead...
I had already downloaded Drop Box. Since the emulated device has internet, Drop Box does sync up if you have Drop Box on your PC, meaning you get those lovely apk files off that emulator easy as pie... I would also like to point out that selecting gmail for these apk files found in /sdcard/backup/apps will also work at this point as the files will no longer ghost out on you... However Drop Box is a bit more clean