- The new Big Sur MacOS software running on M1 Macs will support ALL Intel Mac software by using its built-in Rosetta-2 emulator. Apple used a similar emulator when transitioning INTO Intel software from PowerPC, so they have deep experience with the issues involved.
- Android Emulator for Macbook M1 - posted in Mac OS: Hello all, I am looking for an Android emulator for Macbook PRO M1. I have tried Bluestack, NOX and Genymotion but they are not working.
- Apr 14, 2021 My first impression of setting up Android App Development on an M1 MacBook Pro is not as positive as I hope to get it, as my blog below. It is working, but it is not ideal in various way.
So many people asking about running the android app on mac m1 system and about its performance on mac m1. So In this post I am sharing all steps to run the react-native android app on mac m1. Android Emulator for M1 is not available on stable releases yet and I am also waiting for Android Studio to fully support M1 macs so that I can use it for.
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:
Unable to install Intel® HAXM
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
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.
Android Emulator Macbook M1
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 :-)
M1 Macbook Android Emulator Windows 10
Conclusion
Best Emulators For Mac M1
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: