Whatever happend to the android execution environment

[destructaball]

I remember how awesome i thought it would be to be able to run android apps in ubuntu.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/26/c...-android-apps/
What happened to it? I've googled it and I can find no mention of how the project is going, features regularly miss releases but they're rarely just forgotten about.

[Queue29]

Why would you even want apps designed for a tiny screen cell phone to run on your laptop/desktop/devicethatisnotaphone?

Anything you can do on a phone, you can do on Ubuntu, using programs designed to run on .. Ubuntu. Except make phone calls I guess, but an execution environment isn't going to help with that anyway.

[joey-elijah]

Y'know i wondered the same thing...

[joey-elijah]

Why would you even want apps designed for a tiny screen cell phone to run on your laptop/desktop/devicethatisnotaphone?

Anything you can do on a phone, you can do on Ubuntu, using programs designed to run on .. Ubuntu. Except make phone calls I guess, but an execution environment isn't going to help with that anyway.

The idea behind it wasn't so much the "why" as the "we can".

Besides there are lots of reasons why having Android apps running in Ubuntu would be awesome and would a) widen the market for Android Apps and b) give users choice! There are plenty of android applications which i'd love to be able to run on my desktop.

[Queue29]

There are plenty of android applications which i'd love to be able to run on my desktop.

Examples?

Maybe if the FOSS world would quit wasting time on projects like this, something worthwhile might be produced?

[ElSlunko]

Examples?

Maybe if the FOSS world would quit wasting time on projects like this, something worthwhile might be produced?

Yeah FOSS has nothing worthwhile to show.

[Queue29]

Yeah FOSS has nothing worthwhile to show.

I meant in place of what amounts to a phone - emulator (which already exists - just use the Android plugin for eclipse)
Without FOSS I wouldn't have a job.

[gnomeuser]

Why would you even want apps designed for a tiny screen cell phone to run on your laptop/desktop/devicethatisnotaphone?

I have to admit the calendar widget/application on my HTC Hero is most beautiful, functional and well designed calendar applications I have ever used. I would love it if I could have it on my desktop as well.

[dimeotane]

I'm wondering the same thing. Perhaps Ubuntu got flack from Google for their demo, and they've not showed it again since.

Another method of getting Android in Ubuntu, is to boot the android.iso in virtualbox.

[motin]

Yeah, WHAT HAPPENED?? It sounded so promising last year, but now, nothing, I mean _nothing_, has happened for months and months?

The developer hacking away on this hasn't updated it's blog since Aug 27 2009
http://mjfrey.blogspot.com/

He but mentions the fact that some core parts that are needed to use google services are not included in the git tree. "Free but not Open". Maybe his interest dropped after this insight.

The android.iso is available here: http://code.google.com/p/live-android/
EDIT:

Comment by caavchen, Nov 22, 2009
No updates or news since four months ago. I think this project is dead. If you are looking for running Android on x86, Please try Android-x86 1.6, http://www.android-x86.org/. This is a real open source project and very activity.

Comment by xeskhw, Nov 22, 2009
Totally agree with caavchen. Android-x86 is much better.

Then there is the simulator approach: http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-t...u-115152.shtml
(For me, running on a netbook, the default simulator skin is to big to fit on screen real estate and veeery slow though)

According to the blueprint:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubu...on-environment

It's prio is set to "Priority: Low (Needs guidance)" with the whiteboard at "Waiting on OSG to hear more on Android progress"

It's like everyone that thought about hacking away on this are thinking "hey, no need, canonical is working hard on this, I'll jump on the wagon when they get some code up at launchpad". But then Canonical is no longer working on it, without announcing that fact, which leads to the silent death of any possiblity of seeing this in Ubuntu in the foreseeable future...

Anything we can do to help?