Chrome APK Packager makes Chrome packages from Android apps
John wrote a few days ago about the new ability on Chrome to run most Android apps that don’t depend on Google Play services. There still were a few hoops to go through to get the apps from Google Play (or your phone), to Chrome however.
Now there’s an Android app to take an Android APK, strip it, repackage it as a Chrome ARChon Custom Runtime package, and dump it in a directory for you to install on Chrome.
Whether or not it works once it’s repackaged and installed on Chrome is anyone’s guess. Some apps work fine, some have dependencies that won’t be found out until they fail, but at least you won’t have had to put too much effort into converting the APK only to find out that it’s not going to work.
The application is a bit bare bones at the moment, but the todo list includes a better UI and the inclusion of a built-in web server that will allow you to push converted files directly from your phone to a Chromebook.
If you’re interested in trying but not really interested in installing the application on your phone, just download the apk to your downloads directory, or computer, navigate to it with the Chrome APK packager, and let it do its thing.
It’s free, so feel free to give it a try and let us know how it works for you.
[xda-developers]
