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azangru
February 13th, 2010, 04:39 PM
Time and time again I see announcements of new netbooks or tablets with Android on board. Notion Ink's Adam, presented at CES, if I am not mistaken, had it; a new HP netbook (http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/HP-Compaq-Airlife-100/?kc=rss) is supposed to have it. Which makes me wonder: why do manufacturers choose this half-open-source OS over pure Linux? Why, for instance, when there is such a beauty as Eeebuntu (now renamed EB4.0), a "real" desktop-grade OS customized for a netbook, would anybody want to have a phone-grade OS on their HP netbook with a comfortably large 10-inch display? Why don't manufacturers adopt Eeebuntu (or Ubuntu Netbook Remix, or OpenSUSE, or something of the kind) as their standard; why all this fuss about Android?

dragos240
February 13th, 2010, 04:56 PM
Time and time again I see announcements of new netbooks or tablets with Android on board. Notion Ink's Adam, presented at CES, if I am not mistaken, had it; a new HP netbook (http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/HP-Compaq-Airlife-100/?kc=rss) is supposed to have it. Which makes me wonder: why do manufacturers choose this half-open-source OS over pure Linux? Why, for instance, when there is such a beauty as Eeebuntu (now renamed EB4.0), a "real" desktop-grade OS customized for a netbook, would anybody want to have a phone-grade OS on their HP netbook with a comfortably large 10-inch display? Why don't manufacturers adopt Eeebuntu (or Ubuntu Netbook Remix, or OpenSUSE, or something of the kind) as their standard; why all this fuss about Android?

Because android is a mobile platform, usually on cell phones and such. It's harder to get Linux on a phone.

jrusso2
February 13th, 2010, 04:57 PM
Time and time again I see announcements of new netbooks or tablets with Android on board. Notion Ink's Adam, presented at CES, if I am not mistaken, had it; a new HP netbook (http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/HP-Compaq-Airlife-100/?kc=rss) is supposed to have it. Which makes me wonder: why do manufacturers choose this half-open-source OS over pure Linux? Why, for instance, when there is such a beauty as Eeebuntu (now renamed EB4.0), a "real" desktop-grade OS customized for a netbook, would anybody want to have a phone-grade OS on their HP netbook with a comfortably large 10-inch display? Why don't manufacturers adopt Eeebuntu (or Ubuntu Netbook Remix, or OpenSUSE, or something of the kind) as their standard; why all this fuss about Android?

It has standards, Linux does not. I don't care what people say that having no standards is a good thing its not when it comes to OEM's

azangru
February 13th, 2010, 05:04 PM
It has standards, Linux does not. I don't care what people say that having no standards is a good thing its not when it comes to OEM's

You mean, OEMs can't control whether Linux will work on their devices or not? And when the user himself installs Linux on the device and it works, he is just being lucky?

jrusso2
February 13th, 2010, 05:05 PM
Every six months it changes and who knows if it will work on their hardware in six months even if they can get it working now.

Simian Man
February 13th, 2010, 05:11 PM
Google is a much larger, more reliable company than any Linux company
The Android software stack is developed and maintained by one company - not scores of them
Android runs a sand-boxed Java based environment which offers more security than other Linux systems
Android is already well-suited to the embedded domain and has support for sensor devices while other Linux systems would have to be custom tailored.
The Android market place is full of cool applications with small-screens and mobile connectivity in mind.


Need more?

pwnst*r
February 13th, 2010, 05:21 PM
Google is a much larger, more reliable company than any Linux company
The Android software stack is developed and maintained by one company - not scores of them
Android runs a sand-boxed Java based environment which offers more security than other Linux systems
Android is already well-suited to the embedded domain and has support for sensor devices while other Linux systems would have to be custom tailored.
The Android market place is full of cool applications with small-screens and mobile connectivity in mind.


Need more?

^^This.

azangru
February 13th, 2010, 05:32 PM
Google is a much larger, more reliable company than any Linux company
The Android software stack is developed and maintained by one company - not scores of them
Android runs a sand-boxed Java based environment which offers more security than other Linux systems
Android is already well-suited to the embedded domain and has support for sensor devices while other Linux systems would have to be custom tailored.
The Android market place is full of cool applications with small-screens and mobile connectivity in mind.


Need more?

Compatibility with Linux software would be nice :) Is there one?

Starlight
February 13th, 2010, 06:49 PM
I guess that's because Android and all its apps are made to work well with small and medium sized touch screens. I don't really think any of the most common desktop Linux apps (web browsers, IMs, etc.) would be as usable on a touchscreen tablet as Android apps.

Hyporeal
February 13th, 2010, 06:56 PM
Google is a much larger, more reliable company than any Linux company
The Android software stack is developed and maintained by one company - not scores of them
Android runs a sand-boxed Java based environment which offers more security than other Linux systems
Android is already well-suited to the embedded domain and has support for sensor devices while other Linux systems would have to be custom tailored.
The Android market place is full of cool applications with small-screens and mobile connectivity in mind.


Need more?

I am not convinced. Netbook screens are usually not all that small, and I expect to be able to do more real work with netbooks and tablets than with phones. As "cool" as Android apps may be, they still can't compare with the enormous volume of useful applications available to distributions such as Ubuntu. The security and support benefits of Android are not really compelling.

In my opinion, the decision to use Android is based on a perceived market trend. People supposedly want a platform for specialized Java applets. That doesn't fit my personal use cases, but I can see how someone might find an Android tablet useful.

jenneymac
February 13th, 2010, 06:57 PM
Android is not popular. You ask the average person on the street who knows what an iPhone is, they never heard of Android. Droid is a vendor-specific rebrand of Android that looks to be popular, or at least getting a lot of hype with the tech crowd. Whether or not that will lead to long-term popularity is questionable.

One thing's for sure, the Android platform is going to saturate the market. There's something like 60 Android phones slated for the first half of 2010. The only concern is being Android does not have an Apple type agency locking it down, will the platform become fragmented?

jenneymac
February 13th, 2010, 06:58 PM
Android is not popular. You ask the average person on the street who knows what an iPhone is, they never heard of Android. Droid is a vendor-specific rebrand of Android that looks to be popular, or at least getting a lot of hype with the tech crowd. Whether or not that will lead to long-term popularity is questionable.

One thing's for sure, the Android platform is going to saturate the market. There's something like 60 Android phones slated for the first half of 2010. The only concern is being Android does not have an Apple type agency locking it down, will the platform become fragmented?

Simian Man
February 13th, 2010, 07:40 PM
I am not convinced. Netbook screens are usually not all that small, and I expect to be able to do more real work with netbooks and tablets than with phones. As "cool" as Android apps may be, they still can't compare with the enormous volume of useful applications available to distributions such as Ubuntu.
Netbooks and tablets aren't primarily for real work though. By far the most commonly run application on such device will be a web browser, so everything else is really secondary. And more people would want to add the kind of applications in the Android marketplace than in the repos of common Linux distros.

And I really can't see myself using OpenOffice or Gimp on a ten inch touch screen.


The security and support benefits of Android are not really compelling.
Maybe not as a user, but if you were an OEM shipping a new computer system, I guarantee you that security and support would be your two biggest concerns.

mickie.kext
February 13th, 2010, 07:47 PM
It is just about one thing: size.

Google has enough influence to take OEMs on their side, and they have enough money and marketing power to warrant that OEMs will make sales if they support Android. It all comes to how big you are. Simple as that.

Saying that Android has standard and Linux do not is just ridiculous. Android uses non-standard version of Java called Dalvik which is incompatible with JavaME. It also uses non standard Linux kernel and it does not support most of hardware that Linux support because they omitted most of drivers and changed kernel to much for those drivers to work anyway.

So no standards. Just size.

Hyporeal
February 13th, 2010, 09:14 PM
Maybe not as a user, but if you were an OEM shipping a new computer system, I guarantee you that security and support would be your two biggest concerns.

OEMs want sales, and you can hardly expect to sell security and support. You can sell the Google brand. You can sell an iPhone-like UI. You can sell the image of someone using Twitter and YouTube on their tablet. I would guess that the adoption of Android is motivated more by marketing advantages than technical ones.

squilookle
February 13th, 2010, 10:46 PM
I have to admit that one of the main reasons for my getting an Android phone was that I wanted the web browsing capabilities of the iPhone without the ridiculous cost of the phone or the restrictions imposed by Apple - and Android was (and I believe still is) the closest thing to filling that gap.

When my contract ends and I look to get my next phone, I will look at Maemo, but as long as I don't face excessive restrictions on what I can do with my phone, and I can make calls, send texts, browse the web and play music easily and without tinkering, I'm happy.