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I have read about emulating an Android from windows here: http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/emulator.html and here are the basic knowledge written as a guide.

Download the Android SDK

You can download the Android SDK from here: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html Do that and unpack it to your disc.

Open CMD window with current directory set to “tools”

We need a CMD prompt with current directory set to the “tools” directory inside the Android SDK

• Finding the emulator.exe.
  Click the start button of windows
• In the search field enter "emulator.exe"
• When the "emulator.exe" appears right click on it and click "Open the location"
• Now you click the full address of the explorer which opened. It is probertly something like this:
  C:\Users\Sten\Documents\Download\android-sdk_r05-windows\android-sdk-windows\tools
• Copy that full address to the clipboard
• Open a CMD prompt
  Press the [Windows-key]+[R] or enter "cmd" in the windows search textarea of the windows startmenu
• In the CMD window enter: "cd " + right click and paste the path from above

Setup an "AVD" – Android Virtual Device

Before we can run the emulator we need to have defined an Android Virtual Device. There are a tool in the SDK which will help us do that.

The command you should use looks like this:

android create avd -n <name> -t <targetID> [-<option> <value>] …

Then <name> is well a name which you use in future when runne the AVD.

The <targetID> is used to select which hardware and OS version should be used for your virtual device. You can get at list of the currently available targets on your SDK by typing this command:

android list targets

For now lets try a simple AVD – in the references below you can find a link to the complete documentation of the AVD.

To create an Android 2.1 based AVD called “Android2.1” type this command:

android create avd -n Android2.1 -t android-7

Running the emulator

After having created an AVD we can run it from the command window. To run the AVD we created called “Android2.1” simply enter this command:

emulator –avd Android2.1

To start of with the emulator will “boot” – that may take a while, but you should see something like this:

Here are some more screenshoots:

Adding a SD card

One thing which I did not thing about but was quickly aware of was the need for a SD Card in the emulator. No problem! You simply change the command to:

android create avd -n Android_2G_SDCard -c 2000M -t android-7

It may take a while to create – but when done you have a new AVD profile called “Android_2G_SDCard” which is based on Android 2.1 and has a SD card with 2GB memory.

Installing Apps

You can install apps on the AVD. I tried simply by locating “APK” files on a website containing Android Apps. Using the browser I visited http://www.androidfreeware.org/ and located an APK file – downloaded it and installed the app as seen below.

Conclusion

I find the emulator included in the Google Android SDK very usefull! It is relatively straightforward and I guess that you can get a taste of the Android OS for free using this emulator. People who have not yet bought a smartphone have all the chances here to try out the interface – and even download some of the apps availiable for free. For an app developer it is probertly also a very usefull tool! Well done Google!!!

References

• Android Virtual Device

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Ever since I have seen the first iPhone and Android Apps I have been wondering: “How much money could someone earn on apps?” Apps are typically sold at a very small price starting around 1$ – but if you sell a lot of them at that price even one dollar can turn into a big amount! So I looked into AppBrain which is an online service on top of the Android Market adding extra which come in handy for most Android users I guess. You can read my review of AppBrain elsewhere on my blog. Anyway, I have put together a table showing just some of the apps and how much the seem to have been generating (if you can trust the figures at AppBrain).

Using Microsoft excel I have created a simpel graph showing these numbers in a graph (sorry about the danish thousend seperator):

I will let the numbers and graph speak for themself – please comment on them, and if you have earned some cash creating an app for Android or iPhone, I would love to get your comments/experiences as well here!

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It is nice to see when a new feature appears that the people behind it is warning you of possibel bad side effects. Like when you have your android device exposing your position (using the build in GPS). Today I recieved such a warning from Google by e-mail:

Hi,

To protect your privacy we would like you to know that Google Latitude is running on your Android-powered device and reporting your location.

If you didn’t enable this or want to stop reporting your location please open the Maps app on your device. Go to ‘Menu’ > ‘Latitude’ > ‘Privacy’ and change your privacy settings.

Thanks,

Google Latitude Team

(c) 2009 Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

Thank you Google! On the one hand you use the position information of the visitiors (first asking them if it is okay!) and on the other hand you remind people that a potential risc exists! Very cool done!

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This site will help you find and manage apps for your phone. After you have created an account and have installed the manager app on your phone, you can goto the site and see which apps are installed on your phone! It also shows the status of them – for instance if they have been updated. Very nice!

I tested it by searching for "Goggles" – it found "Google Goggles", I clicked on the link, pressed "Install" on my PC. Went to my phone and pressed "Sync with AppBrain" – it discovered that "Google Goggles" was a pending app. I pressed install – and sadly ended up with an error message saying (in danish) that there was no result in the Android Marked for the search: "pname:com.google.android.apps.unveil".

Conclusion

It seems like a nice place to bookmark, a place where you can manage the apps on your phone. My test with Google Goggles I hope is an exception – I expect other apps to install correctly as it seems that I can’t find Google Goggles anywhere! So thumbs up for appbrain.com!

Update: I now have experienced problem with installing two apps and have written to AppBrain.com – hope to be able to post more information here later.

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