Windows testers wanted: an early alpha of AAE, the Accessible Android Emulator, is ready to try on Windows.
AAE lets blind people create, run and test Android virtual devices without sighted help. Every device has a screen reader from its first boot, takes your keyboard, and plays its audio through your computer.
This is a very early build. It hasn’t been run by anyone but me yet, things will break, and parts of the Mac app are still missing.
What’s there:
- Setting up Google’s emulator and tools for you, no Android Studio needed
- Creating, starting, stopping, copying and wiping devices, with Backtalk or your own screen reader
- Device mode: your whole keyboard goes to Android, Alt Tab and the Windows key included, while NVDA and JAWS keep their own keys. Control Windows Escape brings it back
- Gesture mode: screen reader gestures from the keyboard
- Installing apps, the clipboard both ways, screenshots, the device’s volume
- AAE’s messages spoken through NVDA, JAWS or Narrator
- Updates itself, so you’ll be offered the next stable release
Not there yet: the accessibility inspector, speech log, device log, shell, apps and accessibility services windows, snapshots, battery and location. The aae command line, installed alongside the app, does all of these meanwhile. Open a command prompt in AAE’s folder and run aae help.
You need Windows 10 or 11 on an Intel or AMD processor (not ARM), with Windows Hypervisor Platform turned on in Windows features. AAE isn’t signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn you: choose More info, then Run anyway.
Download the installer:
github.com/aaron-gh/accessible-android-…
Release notes and the Mac build:
github.com/aaron-gh/accessible-android-…
If something goes wrong, Help, Save Diagnostic Report makes a text file you can read before sending. Tell me which screen reader you use, and whether AAE’s messages were spoken. Replies here or GitHub issues are both fine.
