BlueStacks
 | |
| Industry | Virtualization, Mobile Software |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Campbell, California |
| Products | App Player |
| Development status | Active |
|---|---|
| Operating system | Windows XP or later; Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later |
| Available in | English |
| License | Freeware |
Bluestacks is a Silicon Valley-based software company that produces BlueStacks App Player and BlueStacks Cloud Connect. Both products are designed to enable Android applications to run on Windows PCs, Macintosh computers and Windows tablets. The company was founded in 2008 by Rosen Sharma, former CTO at McAfee and board member of Cloud.com.
Products
The company officially launched May 25, 2011, at the Citrix Synergy conference in San Francisco. Citrix CEO Mark Templeton demonstrated an early version of BlueStacks onstage and announced that the companies had formed a partnership. App Player and Cloud Connect launched into public alpha on October 11, 2011.[1] App Player is a downloadable piece of Windows software that comes pre-loaded with several apps (including Bloomberg News, Words With Friends and Drag Racing).[2] More apps can be downloaded using the "Featured Apps" channel provided with the software. Cloud Connect[3] is an Android App downloadable from the Android Market that allows additional apps to be pushed into BlueStacks App Player from any Android device. The products are now listed as beta software available for free download.
On October 13, 2011, the company was the subject of a CNET TV video review by Senior Editor Seth Rosenblatt.[4] On March 27, 2012, the company released the beta-1 version of its App Player software. The program was downloaded over a million times in the first 10 days. This was followed by an undisclosed investment from Qualcomm.[5]
On June 27, 2012, the company released an alpha-1 version of its App Player software for Mac OS.[6] A launch party including a mock wedding between Mac and Android was held at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. On Dec 27, 2012, it released a beta version of its App Player software for Mac OS. The company says It can run over 750,000 Android apps on Mac[7]
On May 9, 2013, the company announced their latest product: GamePop. GamePop will allow users to play 500 top mobile games on TV. They also announced it will be a subscription-model and users will receive over $250 worth of paid games with their subscription.[8]
On June 7, 2013, the company announced it was bringing iOS games to TV through its GamePop service, a first in the Android/iOS gaming community.[9]
On The technology page of Bluestacks' Website, an image, titled "BlueStacks supports multiple OS configurations" shows that it running Android on Chrome OS, with a caption below saying,"Android on Chrome OS (for x86): Run Android apps in a browser tab to augment the app experience in Chrome OS". However as of January, 2014, the software is not available on the Chrome Web Store.
Funding
The company raised $7.6 million in Series A funding in May, 2011,[10] and, on Oct. 20, 2011 it was announced that the company had raised another $6.4 million in Series B financing.[11]
Reception
This software received mostly negative reviews. Its latest version (0.8.3.3026) received less than 3 out of 5 stars on CNET Download.com.[12] The top user complaints are the lag issue, especially when running graphic intensive apps and the fact that it did not provide a mechanism to uninstall cleanly.[13]
However, some reviewers praised the concept and hinted that it has at least considerable potential.[14][15] On May 6, 2013, the company announced that their App Player had reached the 10 million download mark.[16]
The release of GamePop was met with mostly positive or at least hopeful reviews.[17] The announcement to bring iOS games to TV was extremely well received by the gaming development community, especially because they work on an Android-based console.[18]
See also
References
- ↑ Empson, Rip. "BlueStacks Releases App Player And Cloud Connect Service To Let You Run Android Apps On Your PC". TechCrunch. Retrieved 10/11/2011.
- ↑ Whitney, Lance. "Android apps can now run on your PC via BlueStacks". CNET. Retrieved 10/11/2011.
- ↑ "BlueStacks Cloud Connect in Android Market". Retrieved 4 December 2011.
- ↑ Rosenblatt, Seth. "BlueStacks Presides Over the First Windows-Android Wedding". CNET TV. Retrieved 2011-10-13.
- ↑ Empson, Rip. "Android On Your PC: Qualcomm Invests In BlueStacks After Beta Sees 1M Downloads In 10 Days". TechCrunch. Retrieved 04/10/2012.
- ↑ Rosenblatt, Seth. "BlueStacks ports Android apps to Mac". CNET. Retrieved 2012-07-28.
- ↑ Perez, Sarah. "BlueStacks’ App Player For Mac Launches Beta: Now You Can Run Over 750,000 Android Apps On Mac". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2012-12-27.
- ↑ Empson, Rip. "After 10M Downloads, BlueStacks Takes On OUYA With Game Console And $6.99 All-You-Can-Play Service". TechCrunch. Retrieved 09/05/2013.
- ↑ Olivarez-Giles, Nathan. "BlueStacks' Android-powered GamePop TV console to run iOS games". TheVerge. Retrieved 07/06/2013.
- ↑ Fried, Ina. "Start-Up BlueStacks Raises Cash to Bring Android Apps to Windows PCs". All Things D/Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2011-05-24.
- ↑ Kim, Ryan. "BlueStacks raises $6.4M to bring Android apps to PCs". GigaOM. Retrieved 2011-10-20.
- ↑ "BlueStacks App Player". CNET Download.com. Retrieved 2013-01-24.
- ↑ Lesmana, Reza. "BlueStacks Review". Retrieved 2013-01-24.
- ↑ Zax, David. "Bringing Android Apps to PCs". Retrieved 2013-01-24.
- ↑ Munoz, Joshua. "BlueStacks beta-1 - Android App Review". Retrieved 2013-01-24.
- ↑ Bilton, Ricardo. "BlueStacks’ Android App Player has been downloaded over 10M times". Retrieved 06/05/2013.
- ↑ Kovach, Steve. "With A Free Video Game Console, GamePop Bets That You'll Pay A Subscription To Play Unlimited Android Games On Your TV". Retrieved 09/05/2013.
- ↑ Takahashi, Dean. "Finally, finally, finally: BlueStacks brings Apple iPhone, iPad games to your TV". Retrieved 07/06/2013.