Is it possible to install Android to a web server and run a Virtual Android OS as a web app

Question

Is there any way to run Android as a webapp? Either by installing an emulator or something like the Android-x86 or Live-Android projects on a web server?

Answer 1

Perhaps you should define what qualifies as a "web app" ?

For example, I'm pretty sure the (linux version of) the android emulator already works over X11, meaning the display and user input can be from a remote machine (running any modern OS) across the network from the one doing the computation. Maybe that doesn't sound like a web app to you since the client isn't a web browser, but hypothetically one could write a crude X server as a java applet to run in the browser, so wouldn't it qualify then?

Ultimately there are many ways to do this - run a bunch of instances of ARM or X86 android on some kind of VM (or how about a cluster of beagleboards?), then come up with a scheme to remote the user interface using something homegrown or based on X or VNC or whatever strikes your fancy.

I believe are also commercial services such as deviceanywhere that let your remotely test your program on a variety of real smartphones exactly matching the configuration an end user would have.