BlueStacks
Industry | Virtualization, Mobile Software |
---|---|
Founders | Rosen Sharma, Jay Vaishnav, Suman Saraf |
Headquarters |
Campbell, California, United States |
Products | App Player, GamePop |
Website |
www |
Latest version of BlueStacks App player | |
Stable release | 2.1.3.5650 |
---|---|
Development status | Active |
Operating system | Windows XP or later; Mac OS X Mavericks or later |
Platform | x86, x64 |
Size | 294MB |
Available in | 16 languages |
Type | Virtual machine, Android emulator |
License | Freeware |
Bluestacks is an American technology company that produces the BlueStacks App Player and other cloud-based cross-platform products. The BlueStacks App Player is designed to enable Android applications to run on Windows PCs and Macintosh computers. The company was founded in 2009 by Jay Vaishnav, Suman Saraf and Rosen Sharma, former CTO at McAfee and a board member of Cloud.com.
Investors include [1] Andreessen-Horowitz, Redpoint, Samsung, Intel, Qualcomm, Citrix, Radar Partners, Ignition Partners, AMD and others. BlueStacks is Sharma’s 8th company (five of Sharma’s companies have been acquired by Google, Microsoft, Citrix X 2 and McAfee). BlueStacks exited beta on June 7, 2014.
App Player
The company was 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. The public alpha version of App Player was launched on October 11, 2011.[2]
App Player is a downloadable piece of Windows and Mac software that virtualizes the full Android experience. The software is free to download and use, later disabling itself and presenting users with the option to install sponsored apps or purchase a $2/month premium subscription.[3] This is not mentioned before downloading or during install. According to company sources, the App Player can run over 96% of the 1.4 million apps in the Google Play Store.[4] It reached the 109 million download mark in Dec, 2015.[5]
On June 27, 2012, the company released an alpha-1 version of its App Player software for Mac OS.[6] while the beta version was released on December 27, 2012. The Mac OS version of App Player is no longer available for download on their homepage, as support for it was officially dropped in 2014. In April 2015, BlueStacks, Inc. announced that a new version of App Player for Mac OS was in development. In July 2015, BlueStacks, Inc. released the new version for Mac OS.[7] In December 2015, BlueStacks, Inc. released the new version BlueStacks 2.0 for Windows which lets users runs multiple Android Apps simultaneously.[8]
GamePop
GamePop, was launched on May 9, 2013. It uses a subscription model. Users receive over $250 worth of paid games with their subscription.[9] It allows users to play as many as 500 mobile games on TV. On July 23, 2014 Samsung announced [10] it had invested in and was backing GamePop. This brought total outside investment in BlueStacks to $26 million. With an increased stride on improvements to its App Player, BlueStacks, Inc. put GamePop development on hiatus in 2015, with plans to improve the product at a later date.
See also
References
- ↑ Etherington, Darrell. "After 10M Downloads, Samsung Backs GamePop As BlueStacks Adds $13M In New Funding". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
- ↑ Empson, Rip. "BlueStacks Releases App Player And Cloud Connect Service To Let You Run Android Apps On Your PC". TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
- ↑ Whitney, Lance. "Android apps can now run on your PC via BlueStacks". CNET. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
- ↑ Inc., BlueStacks. "BlueStacks Features and Comparison". Retrieved 2015-04-24.
- ↑ Inc., BlueStacks. "About BlueStacks".
- ↑ Rosenblatt, Seth. "BlueStacks ports Android apps to Mac". CNET. Retrieved 2012-07-28.
- ↑ Facebook, BlueStacks. "New Mac Version Waitlist Signup". Retrieved 10 April 2015.
- ↑ http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/bluestacks-20-for-windows-launched-lets-you-run-multiple-android-apps-simultaneously-773838
- ↑ Empson, Rip. "After 10M Downloads, BlueStacks Takes On OUYA With Game Console And $6.99 All-You-Can-Play Service". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 June 2013.
- ↑ Etherington, Darrell. "After 10M Downloads, Samsung Backs GamePop As BlueStacks Adds $13M In New Funding". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 July 2014.