Is it true that I can run Android applications without my handset?

Their forums seem to be empty, and website doesn't look to be put together very well. It doesn't look very trustworthy, but that doesn't mean that the software is necessarily malware/adware/spyware. It may work, but there doesn't seem to be anyone vouching for it, except for one individual, which may be the software developer under an alias account. One thing to consider with these emulators is that your computer doesn't likely have a GPS sensor, motion sensor, and other abilities that many Android smartphones have, so you will likely not get the full experience out of many of the apps.

— modified on Sep 1, 2010, 7:46:01 AM

Ok.. just downloaded to my laptop.. while installing AVG found it has 3 viruses and Windows Firewall had a warning. Doing a system restore now.. my advice: DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS PROGRAM!

Ok just reinstalled after update 1.0.2 and all seems to be well..
this time the only warning I got was from Windows Firewall (both XP and Win 7) which is nornal for an app like this!

So for those that might of been Scared off by my earlier post.. feel free to give it a try now!

— modified on Sep 21, 2010, 4:44:42 PM

WOW! Jay may have saved me alot of trouble!

I don't mind the risk.. have a laptop just for such occasions.. plus I learn a little more each time I play with viruses etc

If your interested in running apps on the official android emulator, check out my wiki article: https://www.nextpit.com/en/android/wiki/view/Developing_Android_Apps_without_Eclipse

I have instructions for full development, but you only need to download the android sdk, and follow the parts about running it with the emulator. You'll need the app's .apk file on your computer to install it to the emulator also.

Hello All,

This is Eugene Huang, Founder of YouWave, a startup in Silicon Valley. Today someone prompted me about this thread and I have to jump in.

Douglas, we are a new company. We just put together some information on our website only one week ago (I agree there are more works that need to be done on our site), our forum is new and we haven't made official public announcement yet. Even so, we are already seeing surprising number of downloads and usages. Our product does not replace real smart phones. We are simply a different product. But the real fact is, there are a lot of reasons to run many good apps on PCs. Your same argument can similarly go against your own point. With our product, you have a bigger screen (good for your eyes), you can try out apps before loading them onto your phone, and you can multi-task with other desktop applications. Furthermore, who knows what sensors a laptop will get in the future? I personally have tried installing GPS sensor and software on my laptop. And do not forget, there are many people who do not have a smart phone. We are creating the possibility for those people to enjoy what the mobile revolution has to offer. I have this insight because I watched a teenager played Robo Defense using our software in hours and hours. He does not have an Android phone. And another important point, our product's performance is much better than Android Emulator in SDK. If you have doubt, check this video out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAV4Jbmuhc4 and the thread discussion http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/b07d9b5b53a160d8/. Anyone who has used the SDK Emulator can tell the difference. Additionally, the Android Emulator in Android SDK is simply not a product that can be used by consumers. But YouWave Android is.

Jay, I would like to hear what "viruses" you saw. Can you give some details? Our product is legitimate and is safe to use. I just downloaded and installed AVG on an XP. Then I scanned YouWave_Android_1-0-0.exe (the installer) using it. No threats were found. Next, I installed YouWave Android. There was no complaints at all. What exactly were you seeing? Were they just warnings? "Warnings" and "viruses" are totally different. Sometimes people confuse warnings with viruses. If you have chance to verify what you have stated, please do so and I would be appreciated.

Nevertheless, I can see that it is possible for an anti-virus software to give warnings for our product for the following reasons:

* Our software installs a driver (digitally signed on 64 bit machines) on Windows. Some anti-virus software still thinks that is suspicious.
* Currently there are not many users using our software. The low user count may trigger some warnings.
* Our software needs internet access. Firewall programs may complain about that.

Solution: You just have to trust our software to use it. For now, you may need to work around your anti-virus software to install it. This is nothing new for software, as Ken Thompson reflected in "Reflections on Trusting Trust". And what we are doing is nothing different from any other well known software programs. What we need is just time and users' recognition. Anyone who has created something new from scratch knows this.

I suggest you try out our product and give us feedback. If you are still in doubt, install it on a machine that you feel comfortable. I will check out this site from time to time and hopefully answer some questions. For sure our product has bugs, but it's getting better. We will put in more and more features down the road. I hope that people in the Android community can enjoy our software. Have fun.

Sincerely and Respectfully,
Eugene Huang
Founder
YouWave, for Apps on PC
Fremont, California
info@youwave.com

— modified on Jul 23, 2011, 2:45:11 AM

It is good that we have someone from YouWave here to give some insight and explanation of the software. I thank you on behalf of htclad and Jrod W for responding here, but my skepticism about the functionality of many apps without the full sensor suite remains. However, you do make good points with the strengths of having the ability to play apps on a larger screen. I have seen netbooks running Android, and they were interesting to say the least, so there is likely some market out there that wants the Android experience on their computer. I would like to hear what justJay has to say about the software and the results of the virus scan.

— modified on Sep 8, 2010, 11:41:17 AM

A simpler way might be that you scan and evaluate the YouWave Android software by yourself and share any findings here. I would be happy to answer questions.

Thanks.

— modified on Sep 9, 2010, 8:30:15 PM

This is pretty cool. I downloaded it, scanned it with avast antivirus. It found no viruses. When running it, I did get a warning from windows firewall, but that doesn't mean anything.

I did find the performance to be better than the emulator generally, but at times it was actually slower. I think it was because I might have had too many apps running or it might be hanging on some of them. Once even, when it was very slow, I tried to close YouWave and it wouldn't close. I had to shut it down with windows task manager.

Some suggestions: you should support landscape mode, if at least only when app selected. I realize you can't turn the program on a computer, but some apps (such as robo defense) set the device to landscape no matter how it is turned. You should detect those and allow for it. Another suggestion I would really think is neccessary is that you have to reinstall the apps every time you start YouWave. This is a problem because, the apps data is not saved, so saved games and such are not saved when YouWave is restarted. I found that it saved the data if you closed the app and started it again. But when restarting YouWave, the saved games are not there anymore, I suspect because you have to reinstall the app again. The android emulator will save the state even if you close it and start it again. Another thing I suggest is the default folder for the app's folder is set to program files\youwave, but the place you put the apps that came with it was user\youwave. This made it confusing when trying to add new apps.

Thanks

Jeremiah, thanks for using our software and giving suggestions. Hopefully you had some fun using the product.

Our software engine is superior than the classic emulator, that is why you noticed the general performance improvement. Currently there are two known reasons that may cause our current version to slow down. Both cases are solvable:

First is that you have way too many applications (like more than 500) under one single directory. The first time switching to that directory will take time. But after the first run, future runs over that directory would be much faster.
The solution: be patient when you switch into a directory with many apps for the first time, or split the large number of apps into different directories.

The second case is when you run many apps in the engine without closing them since our product allows you do that. These many activities will slow it down.
The solution: click "Home" button to close them.

Was your slowing down one of these two cases? If not, could you please let me know under what condition it happened?

For your other suggestions, I would let you know that currently we have two features under development. One is letting you save the app state. The second is the landscape mode. And the performance will be improved even in some extreme cases. So please stay tuned for our future upgrades.

And thanks also for your comment about the confusion of app directory location, in our upcoming release we will address that. BTW, did you notice that the YouWave window's title bar shows the current app directory?

FYI, We just opened our support forum at http://youwave.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0. You may post questions over there as well.

Thanks.

P.S. One good feature is our "Get Online Apps" tab. It allows you to download apps directly to your PC. Try it. It should be fun.

— modified on Sep 10, 2010, 1:30:54 AM

Eugene, I only had the apps that came with it plus 5 of my own, in the directory, it wasn't very slow when switching the directory. I think the problem might have been your second case, I must have had too many apps open, it did seem like some of them were hanging (or malfunctioning) also. Thanks

FYI. YouWave site now looks better. It is still a work-in-progress but is getting better everyday.

The software has a new 1.0.1 release with some minor fixes.

Cheers.

— modified on Sep 15, 2010, 6:55:22 AM

Sorry.. been out of the loop lately.. I will give it another go when I get the chance.

I also want to thank Eugene for taking the time to inlighten us on his venture.

However I personally subscribe to the old Proverb: "Trust but Verify"

— modified on Sep 18, 2010, 3:46:00 AM

Thanks Jay for giving it another try.

FYI, we have a forum on our website to discuss product issues. Our current version is now 1.0.2 (check Release Notes for what are the changes) and more features are coming soon. We are preparing for a public announcement.

Ok just reinstalled after update 1.0.2 and all seems to be well..
this time the only warning I got was from Windows Firewall (both XP and Win 7) which is nornal for an app like this!

So for those that might of been Scared off by my earlier post.. feel free to give it a try now!

"trust but verify" I like that. When I get home I'll try it out.... After backing up my HD and updating my antivirus programs.

Thanks Jay for the update.

A little off-topic. I like "trust but verify" too. But what "Reflections on Trusting Trust" tells us is that in computer science, no matter how good you are at verifying, it's always not enough. Read the "Moral" section of this article. So you use a program beginning by trusting the people who created it and maybe after a limited verification.

— modified on Jul 23, 2011, 2:46:38 AM

An update for YouWave's latest version 1.1.0:

Installing Apps on Your Rooted Phone.

If your phone is "rooted", you can now wirelessly install Android apps from PC to your phone using Youwave_Android software. With an ADB server running on your phone, such as the free app "ADBWireless", and a WiFi connection, installation can be done in a few clicks of your mouse.

That is a very interesting feature. You can complete the whole installation process while on your computer? Can you control the whole phone's operations from your computer as well?

Yes, you can complete the installation process on your computer. You just need to first start adb server (such as the app ADBWireless) on your phone and get the IP address and port number. And then on YouWave, you right-click the app icon that you want to install, and click "send to phone". YouWave software will ask you to enter once the phone's ip address and port number and then wirelessly install the app onto your phone in a few seconds. It is very simple.

This wireless pc-to-phone installation is our first feature in YouWave's phone management. We have a serial of exciting functions coming up. What controls that you have in mind and like to achieve on your PC?

P.S.
If you have a chance to try it out, please let me know what you think.

Sounds exciting.. I'll give it a try this week.

— modified on Sep 30, 2010, 1:38:53 AM

Great website info. Yes, you can complete the installation process on your computer.

ok - i'm new

how do i run an app - silly question but i have no file explorer (i downloaded this es file explorer and now would like to run it)
or is this a stupid question

YouWave is pretty cool =] I give my thanks to Eugene and his company. I will be sure to tell my friends about this