Android Emulator Mac M1 Chip

This is the second post that I dedicate to talk about configurations using the new M1 Apple processor. As I said in the previous post, these configurations are workarounds until stable versions are released, however, for me, they have been useful and I guess that someone in the same situation as me can benefit from that.

Using Android studio in the new Macbook Air

When you install Android Studio you will get the following warning:

Status of the PS2 Emulator on Mac with the M1 Chip. Since Apple’s new silicon chip is still relatively new, the compatibility of PCSX2 on M1 chips is still a hit or miss. The good news is that users across the PCSX2 forums have been sharing their experiences running games using PS2 emulator on Mac natively. Is there any possible way I can run an Android emulator on my Mac Book Pro with M1 chip as of now? I tried iMazing but the specific app I want to launch with it simply will not. All other emulators like BlueStacks, Nox Player, KO Player will also not run/install.

Unable to install Intel® HAXM

I've tried to run android emulator on an Apple M1 chip MacBook but it doesn't work and AVD Manager shows. Here is the link to the Android Emulator Apple Silicon.

I recently upgraded from Macbook Air 2017 to Macbook Pro with an M1 chip. My four-year-old Macbook Air was giving up. The performance to run heavy tasks like using the iOS simulator when developing and working on React Native apps was declining. I had long given up using the Android emulator and used an actual Android device for testing. Are you looking for Android Emulator for PC? I have got your back. In this article, you are going to get the latest version of Android Emulator.

Your CPU does not support VT-x.

Unfortunately, your computer does not support hardware-accelerated virtualization.

Here are some of your options:

1 - Use a physical device for testing

2 - Develop on a Windows/OSX computer with an Intel processor that supports VT-x and NX

3 - Develop on a Linux computer that supports VT-x or SVM

4 - Use an Android Virtual Device based on an ARM system image

(This is 10x slower than hardware-accelerated virtualization)

Creating Android virtual device

Android virtual device Pixel_3a_API_30_x86 was successfully created

And also in the Android virtual device (AVD) screen you will read the following warning:

If you want to learn more regarding virtualization in processors you can read the following Wikipedia article, the thing is that our M1 processor doesn’t support VT-x, however, we have options to run an Android Virtual Device.

As the previous message was telling us, we have 4 options. The easiest way to proceed is to use a physical device, but what if you haven’t one available at the moment you are developing?

From now on, we will go with the option of using an Android virtual device based on an ARM system image as options 2 and 3 are not possible to execute.

Using the virtual emulator

Bluestacks android emulator mac

The only thing that you have to do is to download the last available emulator for Apple silicon processors from Github https://github.com/741g/android-emulator-m1-preview/releases/tag/0.2

Once you have downloaded you have to right-click to the .dmg file and click open to skip the developer verification.

Droid4x

After installing the virtual emulator, we have to open it from the Applications menu.

After opening it you will see Virtual emulator in Android Studio available to deploy your Android application. Make sure to have Project tools available in Android Studio (View -> Tool Windows -> Project)

After pressing the launch button you will get your Android application running in your ARM virtual emulator :-)

Run Android Apps On Mac

Conclusion

Android Emulator Mac M1 Chip Reviews

In this post, we have seen that is possible to install Android Studio in Macbook Air M1 and use a virtual device even that your M1 doesn’t support VT-x. You can learn more about this emulator in the following references: