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Android On the Desktop
puddingebola writes "John Morris at CNET offers a brief review of PC Android devices, many of them hybrids running Windows 8 and Android. From the article, 'Microsoft has spent a lot of time and effort trying to get Windows onto smartphones and tablets — so far without a whole lot to show for it. Now several PC companies are trying the opposite approach, taking the Android operating system and porting it to PCs.' The article reviews the recent releases from HP, Acer, Asus, and Samsung. Does Android creeping onto desktop or 'traditional' PC devices have any kind of possible long term consequences? Could this be a way for Android and Google to develop a larger presence in corporate IT, or could Android ever really supplant the Windows foothold?"
Android will be a good alternative for customer service call centers where you only want to use a browser and possibly one or two additional applications.
I can imagine a lot of thin client type applications that will have similar requirements.
It will save a fortune on licensing and hardware requirements.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I'd like to see Android on the PC become commercially available. We have a touchscreen laptop running Win8. Currently I'm planning to find a friend of my daughter's that needs a laptop and gift it. (Downgrading to Win7 is pointless because it has a touchscreen and Win7 touchscreen support is pretty much useless.) But I might reconsider if there were a native Android that would run on it. Assuming reasonable hardware support, and that there was a reasonable selection of Android apps that run on Intel architecture.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
This is the final barrier to switching to it as a desktop, or laptop on the sofa. Major games. Which requires mainline hardware adoption.
When fps and mmos with big iron 3D run on this (sorry Pocket Legends, you're cool but it's the pockets bit that doesn't cut it long term!) then it's time to buy the moving van from Windows, as I did from Mac long ago. The trifecta will be on Android -- surfing, office apps, and big games. Then only price remains...and the Big Mo of cachet.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Gnome is aweful, they took away one of the biggest and most useful things for Desktop computing - minimizing. Until people stop kidding themselves that people don't need minimize Gnome 3's Shell will never gain true adoption.
My MK808 works perfectly as a media center for my TV. I have various nfs/samba shares mounted on it and run XBMC with a mirror of my desktop library database. Planning to upgrade to an MK908 quad core when the price comes down a bit and the bugs in the firmware are ironed out. As for a desktop system I could see it working for most folks, however the way that android manages apps would need to be reworked a bit to accommodate non-touch interfaces.. assuming these don't become desktop standard.
You can't take the sky from me.
When I first started to switch to mac I thought the dual boot would be a great introduction. Within a week I cleared out my windows partition and moved it to a VM. Months later I found I was only going to windows for to see that all was still working in IE and to run the occasional windows only application.
So having an Android/Windows combo may very well have the same results for many. They will think that they can have the best of both worlds and find that Android serves many of their needs quite nicely and instead of "rejecting" windows discover they just aren't using it. So instead of it being a religious conversion it will be more of a migration.
This has got to be a nightmare scenario for MS in that they know that for most people almost any OS will do. Does it have a browser, check (that will be the limit of most people's lists) does it have an easy way to watch Youtube, does it have any good games, does it boot really fast, does it have a good battery life.
You will notice I didn't put office applications in that list as most people only use those at work.
Plus the needs of us techie types are way way off most people's lists.
The history of computing is that winners emerge from the bottom up. DOS was a toy that came to destroy the mighty mainframe. Sun despised consumer level hardware, and now it has vanished, consumed by cheaper Linux and Windows boxes. Android isn't exactly ready as a desktop OS, but its mad ascent in cheap mobile devices means it should be feared.
Most people just need a thin client to access Facebook/Gmail/Amazon.com/Pintrest, Youtube and the 2-3 specialty sites, pay bills and let junior type up his book report. The needs of people who post here are vastly different from 95% of the population.
An Android device the size of a thumb drive that plugs in to the back of their living room TV and works with their bluetooth keyboard/mouse is more powerful than many people will ever need.
moox. for a new generation.
For those who say 'I can't run GNU/Linux, I don't know anything about computers', I reply, 'If you use Android, or any embedded devices, you already have. It's not that difficult.' Android as an OS will hopefully lead the migration to GNU/Linux OS where the user has control. Right now, if you have an Android based device, you cannot even upgrade your version without the blessing of the service provider. Giving control back to the user is key. Rooting your Android device ought to be a right, not some massive struggle where you potentially void your device warranty. PC manufacturers like HP used to void warranties when clients installed GNU/LInux, not anymore. Because HP (and the like) are freaking HARDWARE manufacturers, not software, unless we're talking bios. Power to the user.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
I still use my laptop for "srs bizness" but recently, when I did some server upgrades where I would normally log in via the laptop intermittently to perform admin functions, I found myself using my folding bluetooth keyboard and my Android phone instead.
It was surprisingly productive and, being much smaller, was actually far more convenient than pulling out what felt like "big iron" to do a simple shell task.
My Android 4.1 phone (Moto Razr Maxx HD and I love it!) is already my go-to device for casual browsing.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Most people just need a thin client to access Facebook/Gmail/Amazon.com/Pintrest, Youtube and the 2-3 specialty sites, pay bills and let junior type up his book report.
That sounds more like what most people have in common rather than the only things most people need.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/6/prweb10796698.htm Estimates that the Games Industry is worth....$66Billion Revenue, but only $20Billion of that was from the PC gaming...Microsoft earned that in just one quarter http://www.microsoft.com/Investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/FinancialStatements/FY13/Q3/IncomeStatements.aspx. If you want to know why computers cost so much compared to tablets...$16Billion of that $20Billion was Gross profits...Bill Gates the humanitarian says they shouldn't pay tax on it though.
As someone that uses KDE programs in Gnome, my view is that what in the end could matter are compatibility layers, the ability to run the apps you like in the environment you like. Maybe android is not the most comfortable environment for desktop, but i would not complain if i can run its apps in i.e. gnome 3, if that the environment you prefer. That is one of the strenghts of linux, one base OS, apps that runs on different environments and devices, and the ability to run in one environment apps from another. That way i had the possibility to run WebOS apps/games in Maemo, or X apps on Mir.
So, maybe i would or not run android on desktop linux, but probably will want to run its apps.
I think it's awesome that you're using a highly customized $47 Android device to base your opinion about Android on, comparing it's performance and use to $600 iOS devices. Guess what - they aren't equals. This says a lot less about Android than it says about your reasoning capabilities.
I had the same thought, but I finally settled on Linux Mint with Cinnamon. At first it felt a bit like a Windows UI, but now I have actually become very happy with it.
The current gnome and kde offerings are so awful I find myself preferring to use my Android phone, despite the tiny screen, awful keyboard, and limited functionality. It's just plain easier to use.
Why? No one is forcing you into using GNOME 3 on Linux. I sure as hell won't touch it and I've been a Linux user since 2006 (maybe a year or two more if you consider dual-boot configurations and my learning period...).
Still trying to find a Linux environment I like. I got by for some years on Fedora 10 and Windows XP, but those have pretty much reached the end of their life. The Mint stuff seems promising; but MATE and XFCE had some bugs, and lacked configurability. I think with maturity these may improve. It's sad when Windows is more configurable and less buggy than Linux. But right now it is true. I lost track of how many Linux distros I've installed in the last year.
That's another point entirely; first GNOME 3 kept you off Linux, now you're saying no desktop on it is good enough. Which one really is it? Either way, I'm pretty sure Windows has its own share of bugs and lacks things the others don't have, so really, it all evens out in the end.
I don't want to have to be a beardy sysadmin just to get a system running and keep it up. I hacked it for years and you know what? I've decided I have better things to do with my sparse free time. I want something that just works, out of the box, without a silly learning curve, without having to use google as a user manual just to do basic stuff that takes one or two clicks on Windows. If I hack I want to do it for fun, not necessity.
I'm not a hacker; hell, I don't even know how to code--and I can run Linux just fine. And maintenance? What maintenance? I have had to do very, very little maintenance on my machines since switching to Linux. No defragging, no regular clean-up to keep the system running fast, no anti-virus/spyware/adware/trojan/worm/you-name-it software to suck up resources and have to keep updated. System update? Just download and burn the latest ISO, nuke the old / partition and install there. When the system is installed, that's about it; it's ready to go with all user settings intact. Maintaining Linux has been a dream compared to Windows.
Android is a terrific desktop OS. I have all my tools within a few clicks, including Splashtop streaming to either my desktop or PC (even streaming at 2560x1400 resolution works beautifully to my nexus 10). I also have both the mk808 and (recently) the quad-core mk908 which does many things FAR faster than Windows or MacOS-X. Browsing, checking e-mail, tweaking photos (PS Mobile), listening to music, editing code, etc. IMHO, Android is the sleek, fast desktop Linux OS we've all wished would happen. All that needs to happen is a way to host chroot-like gnome/kde environments and HW-accelerated integrated X11 server. btw, anyone considering either the mk808 or mk908 - go with the mk908 - it's not just faster but includes bluetooth, a big convenience with low-power USB-powered device with limited USB ports - also, there's lots of cool bluetooth hardware supported on android like ELM327 interfaces that interact with your car.
I would sure love to have some of the drugs your smoking! Seriously, people always make the mistake of assuming that it is Windows that is keeping the Microsoft money pit going. Sadly, for the alternatives, it's Office itself that is the key to Microsoft dominance. Not a single alternative out there for MS Office has 100% compatibility with Office, all the moving parts of Office, not just the document formats (which nobody gets right to date). Since Office only runs on Windows, MS gets to sell a lot of copies of Windows. Workers, for now, have to keep a copy installed on their home computers so they can get work done outside office hours, if you have the luxury of having real office hours, which means that a lot more copies of Office get sold along with all those copies of Windows.
;-). What I don't appreciate is throwing shekels Microsoft's way when they are the source of the problem, not the source of a (hell any!) solution. /rant My sincerest apologies.
Yes, there are ways to get around the no Office on anything but Windows (or Mac for a niggling few percentage points) but for the typical, must be appliance-like (or automobile-like) in terms of usage, Linux hasn't been there yet. [Yes, I know Crossover Office and Wine but they ain't appliance-like.] However, there's a huge camel's nose under the Microsoft tent in the shape of tablets and other light-weight devices. The form-factors aren't great but they are easier to cart around when you have office-crap fall into your lap out of the office. Microsoft knows this, or they seem to occasionally act (ir)rationally around this. The solutions are "the cloud" to get you that MS Office-like experience (Office 365) and/or VDI.
Unfortunately for MS, they don't seem to have a clue on either the marketing or the pricing. Those two solutions pretty much only work for larger firms, not your smaller businesses let alone a mom-and-pop. [Have you ever seriously priced Cloud Backup? Including infrastructure costs? Heart Attack!] Equally unfortunate is that there are no cheaper alternatives in sight that actually cross the Office-clone on Android, iOS, whatever divide. VDI licensing costs are just simply absurd, let alone the licensing restrictions per device on top of all the other costs.
I'm not the only one thinking damn hard about this mess. What the fuck do we recommend to SOHO's, SMB's, hell even SME's around BYOD and making all the pieces work together without breaking the bank either in capital or hell, just recurring operating costs? Microsoft has essentially written off an everyone except the few firms that buy in huge bulk (via Software Assurance). Everyone else gets to talk to we VAR's and get to deliver the financial bad new. Thanks for nothing Microsoft.
I'm going to see about getting one of these combination devices. I can already do Android on any of my Windows boxen so that ain't new. And Windows 8 is the first desktop that I haven't immediately done a rip-&-replace desktop crap to something more reasonable, but I've been doing that for decades (Amigan here
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
Yes, thats what many "end of the desktop" proponents dont seem to understand. Even if these mobile operating systems satisfied 95% of the things people often do with a computer, most people would still have their own 5% niche need that the mobile OS is completely inappropriate for and the device hardware itself completely under-powered for.
You have to wonder how tech-literate these "end-of-the-desktop" proponents really are, since clearly they are just consumers of data at most. of course they will challenge you to give them some reason for desktops and you will of course give them a specific answer, and they will of course say that only 5% of people do that.. an argument that ignores the fact that my 5% is different from your 5% is different from someone elses 5%.... but most people have a 5%.
"His name was James Damore."
I am the 5%
I've tried living without a PC for a year. I own an android tablet and an iphone.
Mostly, I'm just constantly annoyed and pissed off all the time. I can do things on the go, which is great. But I can't do much of anything beyond email, facebook, watch a movie or play a game or a hundred other non-productive things. Typing is frustrating, the interface is a kiosk so I really can't move windows and transfer any data between them. If someone hasn't written software for the task you need you're just out of luck.
The only truly useful and productive thing I can do is browse the web to research something.
The same people that call for the end of the desktop have a vastly different perspective from you. You are not a worker or a designer. From a tech journalist's perspective you are nothing more than a consumer. You are consuming their ideas and getting them ad impressions. This device they are talking about is perfect for doing that! Their use of an object is more hopeful than yours, because it's their job to sell you the product. Most people simply don't have time to square peg and round hole the tablet into their needs, of which there are many.
Citation needed. We use Office in our office, with devs and designers on Mac, PMs on Windows, sysadmins on Linux/OSX/Windows, and clients on Windows mostly. We have no issues sharing, editing, and otherwise using documents across platforms.
Amusingly, your argument lacks evidence (even anecdotal).
All that needs to happen is a way to host chroot-like gnome/kde environments and HW-accelerated integrated X11 server.
Bah, not even that. I just tried out the android-x86 4.2.2 ISO just a few days ago, and I'd be happy if it just saw the NTFS partition on the HD. (plus Printing support, there's a app for my printer, but it sucks bad)
VLC works fine, mozilla was snappy, and the play store knew what apps would work!
I think that android would be awesome as a primary OS option, I don't even miss minimizing stuff, they have a task switcher that works fast enough.
Usurper? Seriously? Firstly, Android is by many people's definitions more free than regular desktop Linux because it's licensed under a more permissive license.
Secondly, Android is actually a "desktop" Linux done right, by people who know what they're doing. As a disclaimer, I worked on desktop Linux related projects for years, about a decade ago. I wrote patches for GNOME, for ALSA, for Wine, and I also built an entire packaging and installer framework that tried to abstract out the differences between distributions so people could distribute their own applications without getting stuck into the swamp of distributor packaging (which was and always will be a shit idea). Many other things that I've forgotten about.
It was all a waste of time. Fundamentally, desktop Linux was not designed or built, it evolved organically. Any attempt to bring people together who might have some skill in OS design resulted in endless stupid flamewars and politics (does anyone remember the ridiculous KDE vs freedesktop wars?). The moment the community needed to move beyond the design laid out by the original creators of UNIX it all fell apart and became a mess.
Android is the best of all worlds - it's Free as in Freedom, it's managed centrally by a highly experienced team of computer scientists and OS designers (some of whom came from working on BeOS), the basic design decisions in it are correct - there's no crap whereby every phone manufacturer has to package every end user application. Heck you can see how popular with users it is just to have them distributing the core OS, you can imagine the disaster zone that'd occur if they used the Debian model. There's one audio API, that works. There's one graphics API, that works. It's standardised on one reasonably modern language, which works. No "we have to rewrite this from C++ into C for political reasons" garbage there.
Frankly it's a breath of fresh air and if it eventually wipes out traditional desktop Linux distros, you won't see me shed a tear despite all the work I did.