Slashdot Mirror
PC Makers Plan Rebellion Against Microsoft At CES
Velcroman1 writes "Fearing rapidly plummeting sales of traditional laptops and desktop computers — which fell by another 10 percent or so in 2013 — manufacturers are planning a revolt against Microsoft and the Windows operating system, analysts say. At the 2014 CES in Las Vegas, multiple computer makers will unveil systems that simultaneously run two different operating systems, both Windows and the Android OS that powers many of the world's tablets and smartphones, two different analysts said recently. The new devices will be called 'PC Plus' machines, explained analyst Tim Bajarin. 'A PC Plus machine will run Windows 8.1 but will also run Android apps as well,' Bajarin wrote. Another analyst put the threat to Windows bluntly: 'This should scare the heck out of Microsoft.'"
Who the fuck wants this? Sure, Windows sucks but why would cramming a shitty OEM version of Android make things better?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Microsft gets paid for Android installs too.
Laptops and Desktops don't need "apps" and people aren't going to buy them to play Angry Birds and Snapchat all day.
If you want to make a move away from Windows give them an OS that can actually do something useful. Nobody is trying to replace their phone with a laptop.
Microsoft, past giant of the operating system industry, will die not to OS X, not to Ubuntu, not to FreeBSD, Redhat, not to ReactOS, Plan 9, Gentoo, Hurd, BeOS, the vengeful ghost of OS/2, but to an OS designed for cell phones.
Well, okay, I guess.
A dual boot Windows 8.1 and Steam OS machine. I'm not really feeling the need for Android on a PC. Anyone else?
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Any movement away from a Microsoft dominated software market is probably a step in the right direction. As for the question of whether anyone will use these features, I will withhold judgment until I can actually see them.
If they want to scare MS then they need to get behind a linux distro. Any of the polished ones it doesn't really matter.
You've got Steam pushing a linux gaming line... why would you go for anything besides linux IF you're trying to unseat MS?
This is idiotic and doomed to tragic failure.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I'm generally a strong open source advocate but I haven't found an open source window manager that works as well for my needs. I think having a heterogenous mix of open source and proprietary in your environment is a good thing.
I see it as the only way to compete with android. Just give it out, completely free. Still charge for the server level OS's and support, but for a desktop, MS makes money from plenty of other areas. Office is still a cash cow. Xbox is a profit center.
Google makes its money from their "free" OS through the app store. They also have a pretty neat ecosystem and various ways app makers can make money (in app advertising) They control the entire ecosystem. If MS could do the same with windows, I think we'd see the desktop come back.
Ford Motor Company announced they will be marketing a car that runs on both steam *and* a giant key that you turn to wind it up.
Seriously - wtf?
Sure, Windows sucks but why would cramming a shitty OEM version of Android make things better?
Because there are a LOT of Android developers now, who would be very tempted to write for this...
But also from the user side, presumably you could play Android games, buying them at Android prices instead of Windows prices (or playing them for free, the dark unfortunate secret of Android).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The problem isn't Microsoft or Windows, it's the method of consumption. People are more than happy to consume on cellphones and tablets, and desktop OS's don't fit into that paradigm. If Metro was more powerful/open and had application support, it would be a good idea to allow people to access all their purchases(media, applications, etc) across desktops and mobile devices, but it's not. I guess that's a Microsoft problem, but Android(and every other mobile OS) is equally bad as a desktop OS and none of the dedicated desktop OS's are any good as mobile/touch OS's(fuck you, Ubuntu/Unity).
The reality is that desktops are dying for a typical person's use and consumption. They're going to return to being workstations for the most part.
Why would Microsoft allow this? The PC manufactures must have forgotten about Microsoft shutting down the selling of machines that dual boot Windows and BeOS from the factory. Or also how Microsoft doesn't allow vendors to even advertise machines with non-Windows operating systems. (Ask Dell why they don't advertise their Ubuntu machines.) Microsoft runs the show here, unless the manufactures plan to give up their rights to sell Windows.
Android is not a desktop OS. Chrome OS is designed for the desktop. I fail to see why a desktop or laptop maker would use Android and not Chromium OS. Anyone who has used an Android device with a keyboard and mouse will tell you it is a very sub-par experience. Whereas Chromium OS is basically just Google Chrome with a thin wrapper around it. I wish more PC makers aside from Google would ship Chromium devices it might drive better hardware support and a cleaner install of the platform.
I'm sure if the big manufacturers banded together, they could get enough demand for windows 7 licenses...
According to Microsoft, they own Android - and they have ~$2 Billion in extortion money to prove it (just not ever in a court of law).
Android would make for a decent lightweight platform, but one of the big advantages of the desktop are workflows. Pop a screenshot of one program, switch to Word to paste it, grab some results from Excel, fetch a picture from DropBox, crop it in Photoshop, then make a PDF and attach it, as well as another picture to an E-mail. This is doable on iOS and Android, but the workflow switching is a lot harder than on a multitasking, multi-window OS like Windows, OS X, Linux, AIX, *BSD, etc.
What would be interesting is a computer that can function similar to the Motorola Atrix -- have different CPUs and operating systems that function at the same time. This way, I could use the Android side for Web browsing (since it is a lot harder to compromise a Web browser running under ARM in its own space and running with few to no extensions), then flip to the Windows side for gaming or some attempts at actual work.
Posting AC -- I fear SuperKendall's replies.
Currently people don't seem very keen on buying touch-screen laptops. But lots of laptop makers also bundling Android means suddenly there's a kind of compelling case to get one, where at least there is a selection of software you could run.
Either one apart is not selling that well, but perhaps together they can combine into a Voltron like force to take on Apple.
It will be very interesting to see how these devices end up managing the division.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
N/T
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Why the hell would this scare Microsoft?
Microsoft is ALREADY making billions off Android royalties.
Plus these vendors are already contractually obligated to pay the Microsoft tax REGARDLESS of what OS they load onto a system.
This would be a perfect trifecta for Redmond. Microsoft will just look at this and go "We'll get a royalty? WIN! We'll still get our OS tax? WIN! We don't have to support it? WIN!"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
MS need to build in ModernMix and have the start menu come back to save windows 8
Harvey Norman here in Australia are selling an Android based desktop system.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
From CES 1914:
"Fearing rapidly plummeting sales of traditional horse drawn carriages, multiple cartwrights will unveil wagons that run on eight wheels instead of four."
99 cent tetris vs. $40 Far Cry yay
I'm switching right now! Who needs to spend hours downloading mods for Bethesda games, when I can play Angry Birds! WOO! Those birds are Angry! LOLOLOLOLOL. ...Seriously, can't tell if GP simply doesn't play video games and thus doesn't understand the market at all, or if GP is a delusional, completely cracked Fandroid.
This is the most surreal troll (?) post I've ever seen.
Just a re-negotiation. MS has to give up a few inches (read money) and it will have these idiots by the balls, again. It's Windows 7 that they want? Fine... it looks like that's where the next version of Windows will, finally, be able to provide a proper desktop where it's needed and a touch interface if the hw supports that. Yay! They/we won! Right?....Guys?....
I'm not getting my hopes up. HW manufacturers are a bunch of pussies.
Cover of The Wizard of ID #3:
Voice of alarm outside the window "The peasants are revolting!" and the king, inside "You can say that again."
Even if the idea was indeed good, you expect anything software related made by those hardware giants to be anything but awful? These are the guys that load crapware on every single machine they make. This smells like it is only a grab for doubling their crapware revenues.
Of course it scares MS. If it didn't, why did they even release Win8 with the UI previously known as Metro?
The purpose of Metro is obviously to get a 30% share of all application sales - with Android Google gets this share and MS want it.
If the purpose was to make a mobile UI - why try to force it on desktop users? And why force developer to sell through MS? No, the only answer is that Metro is a land-grab for a 30% sale "tax" on all applications. MS could prove this wrong by simply allowing third party installs with Metro apps but they don't do that.
While I see android multiboot as a dubious value proposition, I see steamos as doubly so. If you have windows, then windows provides a strict superset of the gaming selection of SteamOS. There's no exclusive content for SteamOS right now. There is some android exclusive content, but not much of consequence
One of the greatest advantages of a laptop over a tablet is having a nice keyboard, but lately laptops I've seen in stores all have horrible flimsy chicklet keyboards. They're so bad Officeworks for example has taken to selling Logitech keyboards alongside the laptops. Defeats the whole point.
Until laptop manufacturers wake up they can look forward to falling sales on top of the whole Windows 8 fiasco. Meanwhile I'd rather type on glass.
We heard you hate the Windows tablet interface, so we installed a dual-boot Linux tablet interface alongside your Windows one so when you get tired of hating Windows, you can reboot and start hating Android!
I'm genuinely not sure whether I would give the Android one a boot before laughing maniacally, obliterating the partition, and installing a real Linux distro.
Oh wait...they're trying to make it impossible to do that, too. Maybe I'll just go off and shoot myself instead.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Soon we'll be multibooting to several different OS if this takes off. Linux is sure to benefit.
God spoke to me
I can only assume Microsoft will jack up their OEM license prices, and then we'll see who's laughing.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
At first I thought they would allow dual boot -- Windows or Android. Then, I could buy one and just boot Android and leave it there. On the rare occasions when I needed Windows, (for instance, to run Adobe Lightroom, which hasn't yet been ported to Android) I could boot into that.
But according to TFA, this is Android on Windows, or the ability to run Android applications on Windows 8. This sounds less like "two operating systems at once" and more like the Android API running on Windows.
This is exceedingly uninteresting. The problem with Windows 8 is the revolting GUI, and this does not fix that. Wake me when you release a tablet that will run Windows apps on Android.
Moreover, this is no particular threat to Windows. It perhaps gives a boost to the Windows 8 ecosystem by tying in whatever Androids applications happen to run (you know it won't be 100%), but the box still runs Windows, and doesn't run anything other than Windows. This is no threat to Microsoft at all, and is not a "rebellion".
Kevin Kline voice: DisapPOINTed!
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I take it you thought these devices are dual boot, Windows OR Android. They are not. Instead, the run BOTH simultaneously, so it runs Android and Windows applications on the same screen. I started to say the same desktop, but of course Microsoft has thrown out the desktop metaphor in a return to Windows 3.1 style single-tasking.
The problem is MS current ad campiagn that pushes windows everywhere. This does not help the hardware bods, they can get stuff free (android) rather than paying MS. This does not help MS with an OS that sucks on anything other than a touch machine. MS is ignoring it;s corp customers, It thinks it can get off with it, and it will for now (one release of the OS) but is now on trial with the corps who are now concered about ms's comitment to them. I work in a SME (the core market for MS) and we are likely to nuke our last MS server and machine when XP support ends. Apple in some places and linux everywhere else. They play well with each other.
And Microsoft loses its customers.
It is already happening - that is one reason Chromebooks are selling so well.
People people people! Read TFA! These laptops are running Windows and not anything but Windows. This "two OSs at once" crap is just that. They support the Android API, so (some) Android apps will run on Windows. That's all. There's a lot less here than meets the eye.
So there's no use saying they should have picked Chrome OS or Linux or some other OS to run in conjunction with the Windows OS, because they're not running anything but the Windows OS. Sorry to be a buzzkill.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Is this finally it? The year of Linux on the desktop? Remember that Android is essentially just a Linux that runs the GUI on Dalvik (Java). It can be fairly easily rooted and the existing kernel and ABI interfaces employed to make X etc. run on the Android's Linux base. This could mean that people can fairly easily install a one-download "upgrade" on their off-the-shelf Windows PCs, and employ the full Linux ecosystem without loosing any of their pre-existing Windows features and applications.
multiple computer makers will unveil systems that simultaneously run two different operating systems, both Windows and [...] Android
That's right! We're going to revolt by continuing to ship their OS to customers! That'll show 'em.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It seems to work a lot better than applications on win8. The crushingly dump tile/desktop dual personality of Win8 is not keyboard/mouse friendly. The GUI is full of little traps (don't drift to close to a corner!) that will launch you into tile mode. It's then several hunt and clicks to get back to where you were. I'm typing on a Win8 machine right now and I've installed programs with the sole purpose of making the GUI operate like Win 7 and disabling the tile mode traps.
Android pretty much does what you would expect. The mouse works like a mouse and the keyboard injects characters at whatever the current focus is.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Questions:
Did the Atrix really have two CPUs?
Is it harder than a browser on x86/x64 running few to no extensions? What about in a locked down linux OS?
How do you handle shitty mobile versions of sites?
What about it autodetecting you are on a "mobile device" and refusing to allow you to, say, watch hulu?
How much of that is the underlying technology, and how much that mobile browsers are/were a less enticing target?
Doesn't that also mean Google will view your entire browsing history?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Android would make for a decent lightweight platform, but one of the big advantages of the desktop are workflows. Pop a screenshot of one program, switch to Word to paste it, grab some results from Excel, fetch a picture from DropBox, crop it in Photoshop, then make a PDF and attach it, as well as another picture to an E-mail. This is doable on iOS and Android, but the workflow switching is a lot harder than on a multitasking, multi-window OS like Windows, OS X, Linux, AIX, *BSD, etc.
What would be interesting is a computer that can function similar to the Motorola Atrix -- have different CPUs and operating systems that function at the same time. This way, I could use the Android side for Web browsing (since it is a lot harder to compromise a Web browser running under ARM in its own space and running with few to no extensions), then flip to the Windows side for gaming or some attempts at actual work.
Posting AC -- I fear SuperKendall's replies.
Android has actually been available for Windows before there were commercial Android devices - in the form of the developer kit emulator. So Android within Windows isn't such a stretch.
As for OLE-style tricks, one of the advantages of Android over the earlier Java mobile platforms for me was, in fact the way stuff could hand off. I hated losing the "search everywhere" abilities of PalmOS when I went to Windows Mobile. However, it's true that there's nothing actually like full OLE in Android - it's geared towards handing over simple messages or data services, not entities that are semi-freestanding. It has been enough of a strain just getting a decent set of cut-and-paste gestures for Android.
For browser isolation, the long-recommended solution for that has been to simply run a browser in a VM. Extra CPUs and OS's are more than is required. Preferably using a snapshot image so that changes don't extend past the current VM session.
Don't forget that in 2015 PC and component makers will no longer be allowed to give you the option to disable SecureBoot, so really Microsoft doesn't care, because starting then they will have a total, legal monopoly over all computer hardware, whether you buy a PC or just a motherboard - it will have to run Windows.
[citation needed]
The Atrix had two cores; but the linux 'desktop' it popped up when put into the "lapdock" accessory wasn't really a separate system (except in that there was absolutely no meaningful integration between the Android side and the 'desktop' side). It was just some Ubuntu-on-ARM stuff running as a less-impoverished-than-usual native linux userland on an Android system.
You can do much the same on basically any non-lockdown Android system; but there tends not to be much point. Getting access to pure linux applications from the Android environment is a bit awkward (X servers and terminal clients exist; but are generally aimed at talking to external hosts) and any android-related stuff (contacts, SMS, etc.) is in a more or less opaque blob as far as the linux userland is concerned(again, it can be done, and various Android tweaker/power-user modding does commonly involve hitting the Android system from the perspective of the root user on the linux system it lives on; but there is essentially zero useful integration).
Especially if you have a recent x86 to work with, I can't imagine why you would choose android as the 'lightweight VM for specific tasks' OS. VMs are absurdly useful; but android is a pretty mediocre experience on anything not designed as touchscreen hardware, usually without a keyboard or mouse.
it's the year on the Android Desktop!
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
playing them for free, the dark unfortunate secret of Android
Which used to be the dark unfortunate secret of DOS and Windows' success.
Is Tetris, where infinite spin is the rule, really a game anymore? In fact, Tetris has been solved.
Having an OS that is ready to go in under 6 seconds is pretty damned handy.
Any OS can do that as long as your hardware supports suspend. My laptop, for instance, runs Xubuntu. I open the lid, and in four seconds I'm staring at the password prompt.
What makes Android better than any other distro?
Google Play Store has a large selection of Android applications, especially in categories that free software tends not to touch, such as games and video-on-demand players. Other distros might catch up should more games and clients for VOD services get ported to SteamOS (and thus to GNU/Linux), but that isn't guaranteed to happen.
"I'd like to be able to type the first X letters of a program, have a self-shrinking list of all executable on my computer narrow down as I type (the start menu functionality)" - same as Win 7. Hit the windows key and start typing.
I'd like to be able to do this while still being able to see at least some of the applications that are already running. Often, a task involves more than one application, and Windows 8's Start Screen covers up what I'm working on. Context matters, and for this reason, I've installed Classic Shell, whose Start Menu preserves context.
just say'n.
It's not that you won't find anyone who wants it. Surely some people will welcome the chance to play with a version of Android running on more powerful desktop class PC hardware.
But the idea this will somehow scare Microsoft? That's the part where I'm lost.... Pretty much 0% of the critical business apps in use all across corporate America have Android versions right now, and I'd say it'll be an awfully small percentage of them that get a full rewrite to offer an Android edition. I mean, I think it's pretty obvious Microsoft won't be porting the stuff they sell like Microsoft Office, Great Plains accounting, SQL Server, etc.
The machines in question aren't even threatening to sell this Android OS in place of Windows either... only in addition to it. So basically, those needing Windows for the applications they already purchased and rely on will keep on doing things as per usual, only users now possibly have to be aware of one small extra step; when powering on the PC, make sure not to select the "Android" boot option.
And due to it being open source, a decent window manager would be made within the year
They tried that. Google refused to certify its use on devices that can access Play Store, citing an assumption that Android applications are currently allowed to make about screen sizes never changing.
It won't
If they were serious about a revolt, or serious about sending a message to MS, they should go to CES with all of their PC's running Windows 7 / Full Featured Linux / ChromeOS, ETC... or nothing but Android Tablets.
Adding android on an OS that's already got a Tablet interface is akin of adding spinner rimmed wheels to the hood of a car because people don't like standard rims. It's Basically Splashtop OS for 2014. It doesn't solve any problem, hell it probably makes it worse since Android isn't exactly designed for desktop use either
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
tbh the only reason i even have windows installed is to play games i'm really hoping SteamOS can get enough games running under it i can finally cut my ties from microsoft completely.
Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. - Linus Torvalds
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Growth of Windows PCs has stalled. People aren't buying it. A great many are repulsed by Windows 8.x and determined to tough it out with what they've got. A new Windows PC is too expensive and complicated, doesn't give good value.
People are buying Android and ChromeOS devices. Quick, easy, inexpensive Android and ChromeOS devices.
OEMs want to sell Windows devices, people want to buy Android and ChromeOS devices. Naturally OEMs are going to come up with the answer that all they need to do is sneak some expensive complicated poor-value Windows onto the popular Android and ChromeOS devices and they're good as gold. They really are that stupid.
That is not how it works. You are trying to sell the worst of both worlds.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It fixed most of what was wrong with Windows 8. Plus the 'getting used to it' factor is about over. The problem for Microsoft isn't Windows 8 so much at this point - it is that a huge percentage of their user base are doing more and more from their smart phones or tables - and Windows isn't a solid player in that area. And... frankly at this point it's going to be extremely difficult for them to make much headway into the market. That boat has sailed and the big time mobile players have already filled their ship with Microsoft's PC customers.
Nah, they'll leave the OEM license price alone, but point out that there's another OEM license for the patents used in Android, and that has its own price. Ka-ching!
After MS started this whole MSDN certified shop philosophy they realized that they could trap people into their ecosystem. Nearly every product they have come up with since has not been a very good product but another attempt to lock people in. Sharepoint would be a near perfect example. It seems to be designed to be a MS glue that where you needed MS SQL, MS Server, MS Office, MS Outlook, MS Explorer, and MS Windows to make it work. Take any bit away and no more sharepoint. There would be no slowly migrating away from that one. MS probably looked at how they killed WordPerfect and Novell and said, "We won't let anyone get a thin edge of a wedge into our ecosystem like we did to them."
But they let things stagnate so much that when mobile came along all they could think about was protecting their eco system. So instead of coming up with a lightweight tablet they made the surface that integrates with their eco system.
So basically it seems that MS has become a company that is entirely based upon fooling people into making bad decisions.
But this might seem like a good idea to keep customers from leaking away. The problem is that when they do leave they leave entirely and are never coming back unless their new system sucks even more. Where this is real problem is that the MS system can really suck without losing too many customers due to inertia. But as history has repeatedly shown people don't leave one stagnant tradition for a slightly better one, they leave for something completely new and often quite different.
An interesting example from history was the end of whale oil; it was around $1900 per barrel (today's prices) while crude oil was around $90 a barrel. This put more and more pressure for people to figure out how to extract useful replacements from crude. When they did still people kept on with Whale oil but then suddenly "petroleum" products wiped out the whale oil industry almost overnight. Once the trend started there was nothing the whale industry could do; it was over.
I would say that MS is in a very bad place. Customers who switch to mobile are entirely eliminating MS from their minds. Not out of hate or revenge but simply they don't see an use for MS products in their lives. Of course some people are still using MS office to type a bit and Excel to add up a few numbers but the vast majority would be perfectly happy with Office 97.
So as I say MS has a business model based upon people making bad decisions. But now many people aren't even seeing MS as one of their options.
The article states that this initiative is designed to expand the touch-based app ecosystem of Windows 8. I don't see a lot of desire for touch-based apps on a desktop, this probably will make Android look bad more than it will scare MS, since touch based apps on a desktop will provide a terrible experience.
Twinstiq, game news
The MS Office requirement used to be a big deal for me, until I recently gave CrossOver a whirl. It supports "only" Office 2010, not 2013, but I found that it works perfectly well, no bugs yet (and I use it a lot). So, for me, CrossOver solved the last hurdle requiring Windows.
This is another lost opportunity for Linux operating systems. By Linux operating systems i do not mean OSs with a Linux kernel, which is not a real Linux OS, but one that has the full standard userland as well. I believe many of the main Linux developers have themselves to blame for the failure to capitalize on Microsoft's ineptness. This especially includes failing to realize that hardware support is the big thing that holds up Linux being a viable Windows replacement and the fact that accepting the fact we need to make it easy for users to use Binary drivers and provide a stable ABI for binary drivers. Instead Kernel developers lie through their teeth. One lie is that drivers in the kernel source tree are better than binary drivers. Yet there is a long list of binary drivers that perform much better than the ones in the kernel source tree. Another is that its reasonable to ask hardware vendors to provide open source drivers, when in fact many cannot because they license their driver source from third parties, furthermore, hardware companies cannot be expected to make huge concessions to Linux communities when the user share is still small. The fact is many hardware vendors will never open source and no amount of wishful thinking will change that. Linux people who think that somehow its a privelege for hardware vendors to develop drivers for Linux and will make huge concessions to do so are fooling themselves, if anything, they are doing us a favor and we would have to convince them to do so, including by having a well documented driver API.
The lack of a well documented driver API is a serious problem itself. Part of the problem is the fact Kernel developers practice what are generally regarded as poor habits by failing to document their code and properly document interfaces. Microsoft has better driver API documentation than Linux. I have looked into the documentation myself and it is extremely hard to find any. Most companies will just throw up their arms and not continue if they cannot find clear documentation. They are clearly not going to root around some kernel hackers source code to try to backengineer the API from the source code.
Everytime I see "doomed" in Slashdot these days, I expect a big hit around the corner...
Actually, it seems, many home users don't need full-blown MS Office and Photoshop, and are very happy with modest apps and casual games. If not more happy, because the full-blown desktop OSes give them headaches. An antivirus? System update that takes 45 minutes? My mom doesn't see how that helps her. These people love their iPads and the ChromeBooks are selling like hotcakes.
And MS is scared of ChromeBooks, enough that they've released a series of anti-ChromeBook ads.
Selling a laptop dual-booting Ubuntu is pointless (and I say that as a 100% Ubuntu supporter): but dual-booting Android indeed gives the laptop a different experience, with superfast boot and simple use, that many users will enjoy. If the laptop does touch, too, then you get a nice Android tablet, too, which is far more functional than a Win8 tablet: indeed, PC+.
Also, let me educate you: Android *is* a Linux distro.
It's about 20 years too late.
the users will boot into the Android portion and forget about the broken Windows partition. You used to see this effect with AOL. They wrote custom Modem drivers for every modem they could get their hands on, and for years where the #1 choice for a lot of people because when the Windows Modem driver broke they could still connect to AOL.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Sure, Windows sucks but why would cramming a shitty OEM version of Android make things better?
Because there are a LOT of Android developers now, who would be very tempted to write for this...
But also from the user side, presumably you could play Android games, buying them at Android prices instead of Windows prices (or playing them for free, the dark unfortunate secret of Android).
And there are a few hardware-assisted breakthroughs thanks to a freshly designed Android mentality. We probably never stopped to think 10 years ago how much shareware, paid or even free software suffered due to the *fragmentation* presented by wintel PC *diversity*
I just realized this: un-needed smartphone peripherals starting with the iPhone and Android era gave birth to a multimedia 2.0... different from the nineties' version in that there are no more drivers, sound cards, CD roms, modems, cameras and microphones to install.
Also, simplified file management and transfers to others (no need for CD burning or shady Windows shares if you have Wifi, certain apps or just bluetooth. For better or worse. It is saddening the knowledge contrast in proficient users who only can upload photos from phone GUIs, but get teary-eyed when you show remind them the 5000+ picture archive on the Windows PC won't attach itself to their emails or flat to Facebook. People do NOT want to have to deal with file sizes, folder locations AND the concept of Windowed desktops when they have an emergency to share with the world.
Back on point, devs gave us unexpected products that PCs and laptops equipped with similar hardware still have no binaries for. Things like personal barcode scanning, radio song identification, GPS and compass-assisted augmented reality that lets you
* avoid paying 100+ USD minimum for dying GPS devices
* find where you parked
* track down miles walked for personal exercise efforts
* overlay star and planet information over the night sky as you point the camera
* translate some signs on the fly
Hybrid machines would mean some hardware changes that might spur a new age of desktop based software that you can distribute for Windows Stores.
"Let's move from one monopolist to another!"
If your only dependency is glibc, you are pretty much golden. glibc is almost as good at backwards compatibility as the kernel and has been for at least a decade.
For sound in games on Linux you want SDL. It is under the zlib license which is new-style BSD-like, so licensing is not a problem. Requiring SDL 2.0 should not be a problem on anything even remotely modern.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
The issue is UI. Try doing some desktop-like workflow on a tablet with mouse and keyboard. Awkward. And I doubt Android even provides APIs for proper mouse handling, such as desktop-style text selection. So there is a long long way to go. Desktop UX app is surprisingly different from touch UX, in some fundamental ways. Even if there is one maximized window, workflow still works.
Additionally, especially for anyone with just single screen, Aero snap or equivalent (drag a window to edge of screen and it fills that half of the screen, etc) are really useful in enabling two windows on screen without the usual juggling and resizing. And it allows making full use of a wide screen monitor (I'd actually prefer 2:1 instead of prevalent 16:9 and 16:10). And it's easy to discover by accident, so more people might be using it than you think.
I didn't RTFA, but as a full dual-boot system (NOT VM-based), this could be useful for me. I like to be able to work occasionally AND have access to a mature app ecosystem which we don't have for Windows so far (and may never have in the future). I wan't real dual-boot because an Android VM will be too resource-hungry compared to native Android.
If this was truly all there was to it, a free alternative like Linux would have taken over the market about 15 years ago. It hasn't, and you want to know why? Because win32, for all its faults is a fairly stable (in terms of API) and full featured development platform.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I thought Steve Bennett was the king of Symantec. But seriously, shutdown is right that the snap functionality in Windows 8.1 is more flexible than window management allowed in the Android CDD.
Have you ever used a miniPC running Android?
I've used Android in an emulator on a regular PC, and I've used Android on a Nexus 7 tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard and USB mouse. Does that count?
What could you do with the extended hardware a regular PC could offer and good desktop applications?
It would first require Google to change the API+CDD to provide a well-defined way for applications to opt into a mode with resizable windows and visible scroll bars.
That's true, Windows 3.1 did allow multiple apps on screen, which was useful for copy-paste or cross referencing. Windows 8 is less functional is some ways.
Still, it's funny to compare early Windows vs Mac of the same vintage. Windows would be a footnote in history had Apple licensed their OS to other manufacturers.
The reason it didn't is your premise is wrong.
I for instance am writing this using Linux, and have no windows (except for a VM that has been offline for years) for the last 12 years.
I am a Linux professional and want nothing to do with Windows or Apple things.
But even some companies that migrated their users to Linux had lots of complaints, users find issue with a button with a different name, a tiny difference in behavior from MS Office to Open Office.
Plus 95% of users never hearf of Linux until their employers force the to move. It would never dawn on them to try Linux at home.
Marketing rules the world. And Microsoft has been playing extra dirty to avoid large migrations to Linux. They have essentially given Windows for free to strategic users (that if migrated to Linux would likely cause millions of Windows seats to migrate to some years after).
Finally, Linux developers are too technical. They're not marketing people. That's one of the reasons Google tried really hard not to associate Linux with Android (although Android is Linux).
This would have been the perfect chance for Lindows/Linspire to have struck. It was a decade too early!
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Also WTF brought up "emulation"?
In this post I was referring to the device emulator bundled with the Android SDK, which lets a developer test applications that use the NDK on a PC. Sure, a developer could recompile an NDK app for Android/x86, but that wouldn't help with tracking down bugs caused by ARM-specific undefined, unspecified, or implementation-defined behaviors.
Ubuntu spyware? No thanks.
Microsoft makes Windows 8 more like a tablet interface, everyone hates it, so now PC makers are going to put an actual tablet OS on their desktops? The inmates are officially running the prison. P.S. the little icon that hides everything I used to be able to just click on may work great on my phone but sucks on an actual website. Stop trying to make everything look like Android.
Seriously, can we stop with "the PC is going away" bullshit? The PC isn't going away, the reason sales are down is because PC's are *FAST ENOUGH* for most people for their daily jobs. As a *geek* I'm still running a 3 year old system and have no desire to upgrade. Nothing I do is slow on the system. Every game I run can run full screen on my 24" monitor with my GTX465's in SLI.
The #1 reason PC sales have slowed is that there is no demanding new technology forcing upgrades. In the past, every year a new system would drive me to want to upgrade because the speed boosts were noticeable and meaningful.
People people people! Read TFA! These laptops are running Windows and not anything but Windows. There's a lot less here than meets the eye.
BlueStacks has been around since 2012, funded in part by AMD, pre-installed on some PCs, and has not been a game-changer.
MacOS was already better than anything that Microsoft had 15 years ago.
This is not a problem of "quality". If it were, then a sad command line that requires manual memory management would have taken over the entire market and destroyed all rivals.
EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM was better.
At least AT&T & IBM were competent.
People get cranky when they're forced to use total shit and know that better stuff is possible.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Fire Fox has an OS that runs on portable devices. So far, they haven't brought up the idea of using it to run a PC. I'd like to see them do it since my XP system will be a "Death Panel" candidate in about four months. Meanwhile, we will continue to be held hostage to the MS "Alternation": OK-crap-OK-crap as in WIN 95, WIN 98 (better), Me (crap), XP (better), Vista (whale poop), WIN 7 (pretty good), now the Eight Ball. Hopefully, my employer will skip 8 and wait for 9. Yes, I'm dreaming; it's a government agency.
You may not have noticed, but apple has zero enterprise software. This is kinda useful when you run a business. The OS itself is pretty irrelevant. It's the entire stack - Microsoft get this, for better or worse.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It's not just marketing. Joe from accounts can build himself a quick and dirty access applicaiton to solve a problem in an afternoon. There's no serious Linux or OS X alternative that will enable him to do that. There's no standard, proven alternative to active directory anymore.
And unless you move to OS X, there's no guarantee that new hardware you buy will even work.
I've been a unix professional since 1995, and trying to run a business on it at the moment is very much a case of using a hammer because that's all you have. Doesn't mean everything you encounter is a nail.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Not saying Android for the desktop is a good idea. But there are already non-mobile Android systems that can easily be repurposed as a mom-and-pop desktop (i.e. a Chrome OS-like system primarily for web browsing). Google or search Amazon, Ebay, etc for Android media players (Apple TV sized kit) or Android HDMI dongles (thumb-drive sized kit).
You can't run x86 programs on those ARM puppies, but with some pain you can install or chroot a full Linux desktop on them. Lighter distros like Debian or Arch are advisable over fancier distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.
And that "put away" "pick up" "put away" ... you also need to do so with your mouse in your windows, you can't have focus in all them at the same time, you have one and later the other.
With a multi-window enviroment, you can have two or more things displayed at once, so you can glance back and forth instead of looking at the taskbar, moving the mouse, clicking, and looking back at the window that just popped into view. Don't think of it as 1920x1080; think of it as dual 960x1080. For example, if I'm reading an e-book and writing a book report, I could have the book open in half of the screen and the word processor open in the other half. True, this doesn't scale to several windows spread across several virtual machines, but it scales to typical personal computing workloads a lot further than the "all maximized all the time" policy of popular tablet operating systems.
And I don't know any browser, for desktops or mobile environment showing more than one page mixed, this doesn't exist. They offer tabs but you need to choose what to see each time.
Firefox for Windows doesn't show two HTML documents mixed, but it does show two documents side by side in separate windows. In Windows 7 or 8, if you drag the title bar to the far left or right side of the screen, or you press Windows+Left or Windows+Right, the window will "snap" to fill half the screen. Then right-click a tab and choose "Move to New Window". Firefox for Android, on the other hand, can't even do that despite my tablet's screen being bigger than that of two phones combined.
This tool has no user interface but only a text based interface and/or some type of API access layer.
What funds the continued operation of the API access layer? And how would, say, an interactive image browsing or manipulation program or a map program work with a text-based interface?
If you are a "power user" that doesn't depends on a GUI to perform a specific task, why not to use a text command? Even a robot can do it
Robots can't look at advertisements. Or would you prefer paywalls?
> but android is a pretty mediocre experience on anything not designed as touchscreen hardware, usually without a keyboard or mouse.
I've had a mouse and keyboard hooked up to my phone (with an OTG adapter). I honestly didn't find it bad at all. The scroll wheel worked, avoiding having to click and drag to scroll. Everything else worked as expected... Really, the only thing that was a bit weird was 'swiping' down from the top to get my notifications and stuff.
That may have been a dealbreaker at some point, but with Windows 8 around it's now no worse than the flagship OS from the world's largest software company. At least I'm familiar with the Android gestures...
This statement is forty-five characters long.
Window's and Linux Android and Apple is nothing more than a payola gateway for the Apps makers to bleed money out of their fan base at every turn. Want extra users? you get 3 extra for $2.99 and above. game tools you pay out the yang for. more board play? pay for it. It's getting ridiculous. Soon the masses will start paying attention to their bank accounts and see all those apple purchases and realize they are not worth it. I stopped dishing out the same month I was purchasing. Why? because many of those games are rigged. Watch your games when you first play without the pay you have moves you can do the game stays the same level through out your play. As soon as you put money down the game gets harder and very difficult to win. Even Rovio is getting in on the payola bandwagon. it won't last, and I don't see this move by the manufacturers being a win for anyone, including them. All anyone has done so far is let these Apps get out of hand. They soon will be making money by charging 99 cents just for you to download their stuff. Gone will be free. They will use such jargon as this allows you to receive updates or some crap they think up.