I'm not sure what else to say. I downloaded, followed all instructions, as far as I know installation did not encounter any problems. I click on "Connect -> Emulator" and it just never loads. I've waited 15 minutes.
I am using the newer (v3.0) of the emulator for mac. What do I do?
add to list of problems...
although it does not appear to "launch" at all, it does appear in the Activity monitor as two separate processes both titled "aistarter". Those processes are not removed even after force quitting both.
What model of Mac are you using?
MacBook Air, M1, 2020, 8GB memory
That would explain it. The emulator package we publish bundles the Android emulator for x86 Macs. As a workaround you can run an Android emulator for M1 via Android Studio. You just need to install the companion app by downloading it from this link and then dragging and dropping it into the emulator window. aiStarter will use the running emulator instead of trying to start the unrunnable x86 version.
I am still unable to launch the emulator. I just want to double check. The file (and only file that you get from the link) is "emulator.apk" -> 8.5 MB. It was saved to my downloads folder, I moved it to "Application" -> "AppInventor" -> "emulator" (put in emulator folder, but not any of the subfolders in it ie "lib", "qemu" etc) ; restarted my airbook; then tried to run Emulator (?)
I think I should also mention that I do not have administrator privileges on this airbook. I can get a "temporary" 30 min privilege, which I did. That privilege seems to go away if I am idle and let the screen saver kick in (although I might be wrong about that). Could this be a factor/cause as well?
ALSO in my Applications folder, everything else in there (although they are actually just folders) has an icon for it. "AppInventor" appears as just a folder. Does that mean that it is not fully installed or not fully recognized by my machine?
No, that is not what I meant.
You will need to install Android Studio and its emulator. When you run the emulator via Android Studio, you will drag and drop the APK into the emulator window to install it. Once you've done that, using the Connect > Emulator option in App Inventor will connect to the running emulator in Android Studio. I don't think you would need any administrative permissions for this since I believe it is possible to install Android Studio into your user directory.