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MichaelCrawford
That is an unfortunate name for an API; most people these days know ARC as Automated Reference Counting, which Apple's Cocoa and Cocoa touch use to hide memory management.
sagarm
The API targets Android devs. I doubt many of them particularly care about Apple's ARC.
MichaelCrawford
There are many developers, as well as many software publishers who support both iOS and Android.
saurik
I would even go so far as to say people who only target or care about one platform are an extreme minority.
hobarrera
Generally, developers focus on a single platform (eg: iOS), and whomever hired them hires another dev to handle the each other mobile platform (eg: Android, etc).

In my experience, I've never seen a same developer work on both.

lern_too_spel
2010: Most people know IOS as Internetwork Operating System.
MichaelCrawford
Apple licensed Cisco's trademark.

The really should not have done so; it's confusing when one does a web search.

johladam
Having used ARC, I'm surprised at how well it works. ARC runs applications noticeably faster than my Nexus 5, and it runs amazing well compared to the Android emulator. I think in the next few months well see someone creating a plugin for Android Studio that will allow you to use it as opposed to using the standard emulator with Intel HAXM.
kyriakos
That would be great. One of the reasons I never got into android development is the unbearable performance of the emulator.
kenrikm
Same here, however I've recently been doing some android and if you Install Genymotion it's actually not as terrible.
kenrikm
Genymotion is actually pretty good when compared to the standard terrible emulator. (still neither of them hold a candle to the iOS simulator)
azakai
The title is incorrect - it should remove the "OS" part. ARC means "App Runtime for Chrome", it is not specific to Chrome OS.

That isn't a trivial difference - it matters. This is Google bringing Android apps to Chrome - on Mac, on Windows, on Linux, on Chrome OS - and not just to Chrome OS. In other words, Chrome isn't just a browser, it also does things that have nothing to do with being a browser.

dreac
Where did you get the Windows, Mac, Linux part? All current ARC apps are Chrome OS only. (e.g.; Vine, Evernote) Is there a release date for ARC for Win, Mac and Linux?
ahomescu1
From the link:

   To test your app, you need three things:

    Your APK.
    PC, Mac, Linux, or Chromebook on Chrome Version 41+.
    The ARC Welder app.
I successfully installed the ARC Welder app on my Macbook (haven't tried it yet though).
itsjareds
Is ARC Welder intended to be the official way to do what chromeos-apk[1] does? I have had mixed success with chromeos-apk. Some apps work flawlessly, others crash performing certain operations, and others crash immediately. It would be nice if ARC welder does it all right.

edit: I should have read the other comments first. It looks like ARC does exactly what I'd hoped.[2]

[1] https://github.com/vladikoff/chromeos-apk

[2] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/04/googles-arc-opens-up-...

spike021
I've tried it with one APK on my Macbook and it worked fine. So no Chromebook required as of this time.
tdkl
Hope this doesn't mean that data collecting Google Play Services are coming to the desktop as well.
bliti
I was part of the original group of early access developers. If anyone has any questions regarding ARC feel free to contact me.