Google Blocking Asus's Android-Windows "Duet"?

theodp writes "Android is free and open," reiterated Google Android Chief Andy Rubin in 2010 as Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7. Rubin added, 'Competition is good for the consumer and if somebody has an idea for a feature or a piece of functionality in their platform and Android doesn't do it, great. I think it's good to have the benefit of choice, but in the end I don't think the world needs another platform.' But now, CNET and Digitimes report that Google is holding up the Asus Transformer Book Duet TD300 (specs), a laptop-tablet hybrid that can instantly switch between Android and Windows 8.1. A source familiar with the Asus Duet told CNET that Google is the one that has not favored the idea, while Microsoft has not, to date, been actively opposed to the idea. 'If true,' reports Apple Insider, 'it may not be the first time Google has helped to quash such a product.' South Korean electronics giant Samsung quietly canceled plans for its hybrid Ativ Q tablet last year, and Digitimes notes that Asus may not be the only company to bow to Google's wishes."

Comments

Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[mrspoonsi]

Is that not Evil or something like that?

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not. Google is perfect and does no wrong. This is FUD from Microsoft's PR shills.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[Cassini2]

If Microsoft's PR shills are saying: "Microsoft's product sucks so bad in the marketplace that Google isn't letting companies release enough product to run alternative operating systems", then Microsoft needs new shills, better product and a new PR department.

Re: Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

You really should have added the /s tag.

Google cool-aid drinkers might take you seriously.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[UnknowingFool]

Well if you read any of the articles, there is no real information or than the contention that pressure from Google has delayed the release of this tablet. It is not explained further. I don't know how reliable this considering the following statement:

Currently, only Intel's X86 chip can support dual operating systems, giving consumers an option to run either Android or Windows, but on a separate basis. From Intel's standpoint, tablets that have both Windows and Android dual OS is positive for its business model, and vendors can also increase brand value through dual-system products.

ARM runs on multiple operating systems and in fact, Windows RT and Android can run on the same tablet if MS chooses this path not ARM. Apple could make OS X for ARM; however, the performance may be lacking.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[UnknowingFool]

I meant "other than the contention that pressure from Google"

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[StripedCow]

For those who missed this, here's a great article:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[invictusvoyd]

Is that not Evil or something like that?

Preventing a device that switches instantly from a bad OS to a terrible OS and vice versa is

... sniff .. not evil

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[silviuc]

The one that wrote the article either has no clue what he was writing about or he's getting paid to be dumb. Basically, you want to use Google's services? You gotta do it the way *they* want you to do it. It's their services and their terms.

Android is not free and open-source? Take a look at the shit tonne of Chinese made tablets of brands that we almost never heard of which come with Android but not with Google services. You have to use 3-rd party applications to get stuff onto those such as Mobogenie.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft allowed duel boots

The Microsoft campus laced with footwear engaged in combat? This is not their sole purpose, you heel. Tread lightly, lest you get a sock in the mouth.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[ThePhilips]

Basically, you want to use Google's services? You gotta do it the way *they* want you to do it. It's their services and their terms.

Which is, if you think about it, is rather evil.

Person can't pay for the services - person can only access the services by buying the Google's approved product.

It is as if we have ended up with game consoles, not portable computers.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[Karlt1]

The one that wrote the article either has no clue what he was writing about or he's getting paid to be dumb. Basically, you want to use Google's services? You gotta do it the way *they* want you to do it. It's their services and their terms.

" if Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice. So if you believe in openness, if you believe in choice, if you believe in innovation from everyone, then welcome to Android. Now letâ(TM)s get started.â

Andy Rubin......

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[mspohr]

Right your are, sir... I had asparagus last night and today I am suffering.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[AlphaWolf_HK]

That isn't true at all, actually. You as an individual can download and install Google's Play Services yourself if you'd like. What you can't do however is sell a device commercially that includes Google's Play Services unless you follow their terms.

More information here:

http://wiki.rootzwiki.com/Goog...

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[mspohr]

First, I never allow my boots to duel. Last time I tried that it was a mess and I'm still limping.
Second, ARM duels are hand contact only.
As far as I know Google and Microsoft have never dueled, probably because there were no chairs available for the loser to throw so we don't really know who would win.
"Liberty and competitive priced computers" ??? What?

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[fikx]

More restrictive? Let someone put MS Office on Android and see what happens...
Of course Google won't like it: This is about the app market. MS would LOVE products like this since it gives Windows users an instant app library. But this is about the market place for Google. To compare apples to apples, see what MS does when their lock-in titles are ported to another platform (breaking the lock-in)...
Not that Google is handling this right, but apples to apples and all that...

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[recoiledsnake]

That will make you a pirate.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[Microlith]

Microsoft would have to back down on the hard lock-down they impose via SecureBoot, first.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[hairyfeet]

Frankly after the terms that Google put out with Android AND the story on how Google is taking more and more of Android proprietary by taking critical APIs behind the "GoogleWall" I honestly do not see how any sane person can't see that Google IS Microsoft of the 90s.

Seriously folks, how can anyone argue that they aren't the same company? Blocking competition? See TFA and about a dozen other articles on Google pulling products with threats of being kicked out of having access to the OHA and Google Apps. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? Hell Android is practically a textbook case of that, while Android 1 and 2 and ASOP were practically identical now there is a good chunk of the android games and apps that will not run on ASOP without being recompiled and in many cases rewritten. Trying to lock in? For God's sake they take bog standard X86 laptops and when they are done with them they are more fucking locked down than a cellphone! Hell even the latest windows allows you to fricking dual boot but not ChromeOS!

I'm sorry but while Google USED to be this great "throw shit at the wall and see what cool shit we get" kind of company as with sadly too many companies greed and the desire to keep the stock price high has turned them nasty. Maybe its a universal law of business or something, you get to be #1 and you turn nasty and greedy as you fight to stay top dog.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[tian2992]

Chromebooks do allow you to install Linux http://www.chromebook-linux.co... just flip a switch.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[drolli]

But there is no service which only google can or does provide.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[ChunderDownunder]

arm v7 provides virtualization extensions - allowing one to host OSes via qemu or Xen.

I haven't seen the equivalent of Virtualbox in Google Play yet though.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[ChunderDownunder]

Running Windows apps in VM alongside Android?

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[drinkypoo]

ARM runs on multiple operating systems

Uh, what? Slow down there, you're getting all confuzzled.

and in fact, Windows RT and Android can run on the same tablet

Windows RT is not Windows. It is Windows' retarded younger sibling.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[Mabhatter]

The standard Windows license disallows dual booting, they cashed out BeOS for $100M so they wouldn't have to have that little nugget actually JUDGED in court. There's no way in hell that Windows RT even allows another certified OS to be installed in the boot area. ARM boot areas under RT are locked much more tightly than on x86 systems. I simply cannot see how you could LEGALLY create a dual OS environment within each groups rules. Android would have to be "emulated" and "sandboxed" under RT. So it would never be "real" Android, it would always be "second fiddle" to the RT OS. I cannot see Google allowing and "android that's not full access android" to be released.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[Mabhatter]

I think the problem is that Android would be running as a "guest" under RT, not as a real equal OS. There's no way in hell Windows RT license allows ANY FORM of dual OS during the boot sequence... they don't even allow that on x86 Windows installs... that's why you have to use Grub as your OS chooser.

Any "android" running with RT would clearly be "second fiddle" to the RT install. Which would mean all sorts of non-hardware level access and other little quirks versus a "real" android install. While HACKERS can easily make Android run inside those parameters, I cannot see Google Ever allowing the compromises in an Official product... it's just not salable.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft needs new shills, better product and a new PR department.

They definitely do.

Especially since this story is clearly yet another of Microsoft's Scroogling two minutes of hate.

Google didn't block the Asus Transformer AiO, which also dual boots Android and Windows, so clearly there's more to this than simply blocking a competitor. Most likely it's because Asus has agreed not to produce an incompatible fork of Android, which this new device does.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[maccodemonkey]

ARM runs on multiple operating systems and in fact, Windows RT and Android can run on the same tablet if MS chooses this path not ARM. Apple could make OS X for ARM; however, the performance may be lacking.

They do make OS X for ARM. It's iOS.

Same kernel. Same display server. Same system architecture. They're built from roughly the same source.

The only major difference is the user interface was swapped out for a touch optimized one.

Clearly, from what we've seen with iOS, the performance isn't lacking. The bigger question is if the performance per/$ is better than Intel's offerings.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[maccodemonkey]

The one that wrote the article either has no clue what he was writing about or he's getting paid to be dumb. Basically, you want to use Google's services? You gotta do it the way *they* want you to do it. It's their services and their terms.

This works great for Google's PR department. When they want, they can claim they are open. But in practice, they can be closed.

It's rather dishonest and two faced, to be blunt. Be open enough to use the open label, but be closed enough that most vendors wouldn't be able to deploy an Android tablet without your blessing.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[motokochan]

I'm not sure about the changes made with EFI booting, but for "classic" BIOS-mode booting, Windows does support multiple OS from its own bootloader. Check out info on the boot.ini (NTLDR). Heck, there's even a tool, EasyBCD, that will help you set up the booting options.

Of course, since most people that use desktops run only Windows, almost nobody has actually seen the Windows NT bootloader menu. Some of the people who used NT 3.51 or 4 might recognize it. In addition, since no consumer version of Windows until XP (the merge between the classic and NT codebases) supported multiboot, it's not a huge surprise that people don't know about this. That doesn't discount the practical issues too: editing boot.ini requires writing to an NTFS volume, which only really became possible on Linux with NTFS-3g, or you have to boot into Windows. If you were going to be using Linux primarily, it was much easier to just use lilo or grub for the bootloader.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[hairyfeet]

WRONG, nice try but totally wrong, just try to download any bog standard X86 Linux distro and see how far you get.

In reality what Google has done is turn a laptop into a smartphone because just as the smartphone can ONLY run certain ROMs and certain versions, even if the hardware is the same, so too has Google used UEFI to take bog standard X86 parts and lock the fuck out of them. Can you run BSD? Windows? Haiku? Make a Hackentosh? NOPE, you can on a real laptop but NOT on a Chrome anything.

Sorry but that is total bullshit. BTW we'll see how long those "Linux" distros get supported, considering its being done strictly as a courtesy by a few devs? My bet is you would already be limited if you had a first gen Chromebook and in 2 years? Well it'll be harder than finding somebody that supports android 1.x, Turning X86 into a cellphone? You couldn't be more evil if you put Snidely Whiplash on the logo.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[AlphaWolf_HK]

How so? Google knows people get it this way, and people distribute it this way out in the open, and google hasn't once threatened them with a lawsuit (unless they distribute it with a ROM, in which case they will do so.)

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[silviuc]

Please tell RedHat that they are evil for not giving CentOS users free access to the RHN. This is ridiculous. You can always use other maps, mail, whatever services. No need to stick with Google's but if you do, since it's their stuff, you abide by their rules. In Rome you do as romans do. It's not evil. It's common sense. Look it up, it's what a lot of people seem to be missing these days. It got replaced by entitlement.

Access to Google(Microsoft, Yahoo, insert whatever other company here) services is not a right, it's a privilege.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[silviuc]

They give away an OS, not the Google services. Please learn the difference.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[UnknowingFool]

Oh yes I know the core of iOS is OS X but it is not same OS. Things do not work the same in both systems; they work alike. It would take some work for Apple to get OS X apps to work in iOS like even their own AppleWorks. Instead they create separate versions; these separate versions are due to both UI differences as well as architectural ones but my point is that Intel X86 isn't the only chip that has both.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[UnknowingFool]

Windows RT is not Windows. It is Windows' retarded younger sibling.

RT has no backwards compatibility but apps built using new frameworks by MS can run in RT and 8.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[UnknowingFool]

iOS shares the same core systems as OS X but it's not the same due to architecture differences. As for pressuring Intel, Apple has worked with Intel so much in the past on the MacBook Air chips that Intel came out with the Ultrabook specification based largely on what Apple did. Apple's use of ARM has to due mostly with power efficiency as the first iPad prototypes were x86 based but their power consumption was unacceptable to Apple.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[recoiledsnake]

Microsoft also doesn't go after individuals for pirating Windows. That doesn't mean that those people are not committing copyright infringement by pirating Windows. It's like saying you didn't violate the law by going 1 mile above the speed limit because a cop saw you and didn't pull you over and give you a ticket.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[tlhIngan]

Well if you read any of the articles, there is no real information or than the contention that pressure from Google has delayed the release of this tablet.

Thing is, the pieces are all there.

First, the OHA agreement (which you must sign in order to get Google Apps, including Google Play) prohibit releasing "Android compatible" devices. It's a blanket ban, too - sign the agreement and you CANNOT release anything Android compatible anymore. If you're someone wanting to release an AOSP phone alongside your Google version? You can't.

Second, Google has already reminded OEMs of that obligation and blocked the launch of the Aliyun phone. Rather emphatically, too, forcing the sudden cancellation of the launch event and release at the last minute.

Android is Free alright. However, sign the OHA agreement and you're really Google's bitch. The ironic part is that this comes from the freedom Android provides.

It all stems from the success of the Kindle - prior to that, well, any Android device not running the Google Market was pretty worthless. But with the Kindle, well, there's suddenly a very compelling piece of Android hardware NOT tied to Google, and that Google cannot exert control over.it. Amazon now has control over the entire thing, and the Amazon App Store is considered to be third most lucrative (by money - first is Blackberry, second (close behind) is Apple, third (with about half as much as Apple) is Amazon. Google Play is a very, very, very distant way back (probably anywhere from a tenth to a fifth of Amazon)).

Basically the OHA agreements are used to "lock up" Android OEMs so Amazon can't use them for design help or manufacturing, etc.

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[exomondo]

The one that wrote the article either has no clue what he was writing about or he's getting paid to be dumb. Basically, you want to use Google's services? You gotta do it the way *they* want you to do it. It's their services and their terms.

I think his point is that Google is shifting their development on Android from AOSP to GMS - now arguably that makes sense given that this means they can roll out new features to devices that can't necessarily upgrade their operating system version, but the question is why make it closed-source and proprietary?

Re:Google more restrictive than Microsoft

[squiggleslash]

Which is, if you think about it, is rather evil.

I think the bar for being "evil" seems to have been lowered quite remarkably in that case. It used to involve, at the very least, cruelty and malice. Now, apparently, it's posting some terms and conditions about the use of your services when those services are pretty much optional and when the terms and conditions are more about protecting consumers from brand confusion ("Oh, I'll just buy this Google Play tablet. (One hour later, at home, after cash spent) Wait, it doesn't run half my apps because it's actually just a "compatible" Android-like operating system rather than the real deal?") than they are about Google making money.

Points to note:

- Android is still FOSS
- Google Play is optional. Sure, Google are doing everything they can to encourage you to use it and encourage developers to build stuff on it, but it's not necessary
- Google does not sell Google Mobile Services. And the chump-change it makes in terms of compatibility testing barely pays for the services it covers.
- While Google makes some money from the various stores they sell, between bandwidth costs, transaction processing, etc, nobody out there believes it's a significant source of revenue.
- Finally, until GMS, people were screaming at Google about "Fragmentation". Even today, Android bashers still insist on posting highly misleading pie-charts showing how many different versions of Android are still in use vs iOS.

We can scream at Google when they insist that versions of Android bundled with GMS must no longer allow users to install apps via third parties. Until then, faced with a choice between "Google are doing this because they want control of teh users", and "Google are doing this because they want manufacturers to stop fucking up", we'll go with the former.

Still open legally

[loufoque]

It's still open in the sense that legally you can do whatever you want with it.
It's up to you if you want to make Google happy or not.

Re:Still open legally

[Gaygirlie]

It's still open in the sense that legally you can do whatever you want with it.
It's up to you if you want to make Google happy or not.

Google can deny you from adding Google's apps and services on it, though, and the moment you ship an Android-device without those you're removing a lot of the reason for why an Average Jane or Joe would want an Android-device in the first place.

Re:Still open legally

[lilo_booter]

And on the other end of the scale, you can't ship closed source products with GPL. This kind of "restricted freedom" isn't purely a google thing, and nor is it all bad.

Re:Still open legally

[nurb432]

That is true, unless you want play services so you can have customers that actually want to buy your stuff. Being blessed is required to include play ( legally ) in your product.

Without that, you are 'yet another c heap-ass junk tablet maker' and are stuck selling out of Walmart and target..

Re:Still open legally

[Immerman]

What? Sure you can. In fact IIRC the GPL specifically states that it should not be interpreted to prohibit bundling with proprietary products, and many Linux distros do just that, such as Red Hat with their proprietary utilities. What the GPL prohibits is *linking* with proprietary products, except through a couple of very specific mechanisms such as used by drivers with proprietary blobs (and even those are, IIRC, permitted as much by community concession to practicality as to secure legal footing)

Re:Still open legally

[lilo_booter]

Yes, it was the latter I was referring to.

Re:Still open legally

[drjzzz]

or like Apple puts their proprietary OSX atop the open source Darwin, which they forked from BSD? Self-interested, sure, but hardly "evil".

Re:Still open legally

[Bing Tsher E]

Darwin is forked from NeXTStep. They then imported a userland from FreeBSD.

Re: Still open legally

[aap]

Which Samsung device doesn't have Google Apps?

Re:Still open legally

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

It's still open in the sense that legally you can do whatever you want with it. It's up to you if you want to make Google happy or not.

Google can deny you from adding Google's apps and services on it, though, and the moment you ship an Android-device without those you're removing a lot of the reason for why an Average Jane or Joe would want an Android-device in the first place.

True, but it's worth noting that that Microsoft is well positioned to fill those gaps (assuming we're specifically talking about an app-store, search, email and maps). Whilst I do appreciate that Android without the Google bits and with no alternatives is a bit crap, it seems a bit unfair to blame Google for that. That'd be like if Microsoft open-sourced Windows and gave it away for free, and then complaining that they didn't include MS Office.

Re:Still open legally

[exomondo]

It's still open in the sense that legally you can do whatever you want with it. It's up to you if you want to make Google happy or not.

AOSP is open yes but how many devices actually ship with AOSP? All Google-approved devices ship with the proprietary application services platform and many also include other proprietary UI layers all with various license agreements governing their use. Then there are forked versions like the Kindle Fire OS which also has a whole lot of proprietary software lockdown. Darwin is open source too but realistically nobody uses it that way, they use OSX with all its proprietary layers on top.

While AOSP is open development is moving from AOSP anyway so that new features aren't dependent on the version of Android that is on the device and are instead implemented in a higher level platform services layer, which is good since many devices cannot upgrade their OS version (and those that can often take a very long time).

The dual boot is stupid for a consumer device.

[slackware 3.6]

Only one OS will be used, propably based on which OS is currently booted. People are to lazy to reboot to change OS thats just two minutes longer to get on Facebook.

Re:The dual boot is stupid for a consumer device.

[Anonymous Coward]

The age of "one device, one OS" is what's "stupid."
 
And I sure as hell hope English is a second language to you.

The delay is almost certainly on technical grounds

[Wierdy1024]

For example, if android is run under a hypervisor that allows 'quick switching' between the OS's, but restricts what android can do or degrades performance, I can see why Google doesn't want to impact the Android brand by releasing something substandard.

Re: Fork them

[Anonymous Coward]

Asus is a member of the OHA. Members are explicitly forbidden to create Android forks. So much for the BS "open" argument.

Self-proclaimed geeks and nerds supporting and defending Google - sad and mind-boggling.

Given Microsoft's past history

[Johnny Loves Linux]

of boot loaders and Microsoft's more recent history and their standard practices I think someone would have to be extremely ignorant of Microsoft's history and their standard practices or a shill for Microsoft to state that this is somehow unfair to Microsoft.

Folks, I don't think Microsoft is just misunderstood. I don't think we have to worry about poor little Microsoft surviving its treatment by the "big bully" Google. I think Microsoft is getting exactly the sort of response that it has earned for its behavior.

Re:Given Microsoft's past history

[Joe U]

A few other apps cause that MAJOR FLAW in the Nexus camera driver to appear.

This is an Android driver bug, plain and simple.

Re:Given Microsoft's past history

[Seraphim_72]

The name of the company is A-S-U-S, the company quashing this is Google, Microsoft have fuck all to do with it. Nice rant though, shake that penguin, make it dance!

Re:Given Microsoft's past history

[spire3661]

NO its just a fucking joke trying to compare Microsoft's malfeasance with Google's. Microsoft pulled some TRULY evil shit back in the day, and continues to this day with some pretty stupid restrictions on its OS.

Re:Given Microsoft's past history

[BasilBrush]

I don't spot anyone claiming that Microsoft isn't a nasty company. What I see is people claiming that Google is becoming ever more like Microsoft, as time passes. And your post just adds more evidence for that.

And lets not pretend that Google is specifically punishing Microsoft. They are only seeking to serve their own profits, just as Microsoft did.

Re:Given Microsoft's past history

[Anonymous Coward]

Truly evil shit like violating the copyright of every book author, everywhere and getting away with it?

Like monitoring your behavior practically everywhere on the web, and then tell you that your privacy shouldn't matter unless you're evil?

Like bundling their services with a free operating system designed to kill operating system sales of Apple, MS, etc? Remember that MS was slapped by the EU for bundling a free browser with their OS. But Google does this with the entire OS!

Like handing over your gmail, G+ and browsing data to the NSA?

Google has done each and every one of these things. Google is worse than MS ever was.

Re:Given Microsoft's past history

[terjeber]

Fuck you're dumb. Really. Like retarded. A company, be it Microsoft or Google working in an anti-competitive manner is bad for you as a consumer. The fact that all the mentally handicapped Linux shills are just too happy to suck Google dick while accepting the exact same behavior they are criticizing Microsoft for blows my mind. I mean, how far up the rear are you willing to take it by corporate rapists before you realize it is rape no matter who does it?

Re:Given Microsoft's past history

[terjeber]

Google of today is Microsoft of yesteryear. All corporations will go in that direction, they are basically required to do so by law. I am puzzled at how much credit Linuxtards are giving Google these days, but at the same time they are not at all willing to accept that Microsoft of today is not even close to the Microsoft of the 90s and early naughts.

Re:Given Microsoft's past history

[terjeber]

Yeah, an Android bug must be the fault of Microsoft. Are you paid to shill for Google or do you just like the taste of Google Exec dick?

Re:Given Microsoft's past history

[spire3661]

Anyone who complains about the browser thing OBVIOUSLY doesn't know the reasons why that was done.

Re:The delay is almost certainly on technical grou

[Anonymous Coward]

Substandard... you mean like 90% of Android devices in existence.

Re: The delay is almost certainly on technical gro

[Anonymous Coward]

The cool-aid is strong in this one.

Re:Fork them

[gbjbaanb]

except if Samsung or Asus fork Android, they are welcome to do so... but they do not get to use Google's Play apps (ie the entire ecosystem that pretty much makes up what people consider Android to be)

It would be better to simply create a new OS.. like Tizen and go from there with a clean slate and nothing holding you back. In fact, I wonder why Samsung is putting so much effort into Tizen given all the freedom they have from Google.

Re:The delay is almost certainly on technical grou

[IamTheRealMike]

And how many of those $50 tablets were approved by Google and run the Google apps suite? I thought the answer was "almost none of them".

The article gives no useful info - assuming any such dispute exists at all, it could be for any reason: seems like the blog is just assuming it must be the dual boot capability because that's what gets traffic. But if for some reason that was the issue, Asus or anyone else could ship devices running the regular open source Android, sans Gmail/Maps/Play Store, without having to deal with Google.

Re:The dual boot is stupid for a consumer device.

[StripedCow]

You forgot about the pr0n angle.
You have no idea what people will use that second OS (with its completely separate filesystem) for.

Re:The dual boot is stupid for a consumer device.

[dinfinity]

"a laptop-tablet hybrid that can instantly switch between Android and Windows 8.1"

Can Apple be Far Behind?

[BoRegardless]

This has obviously been considered now Apple has its ARM A7-A8 series CPU.

It should certainly be possible to put that in a MacBook Air to allow it to run iOS 7 and onward, so we can have both low power tablet and high power OSX in one small package.

Re:Can Apple be Far Behind?

[Karlt1]

It should certainly be possible to put that in a MacBook Air to allow it to run iOS 7 and onward, so we can have both low power tablet and high power OSX in one small package.

There is no need to have an A7 in the Macbook Air to run iOS apps.

There is already a fully functional version of iOS 7 that runs on x86 based Macs and there has been since the app store was introduced. In fact I doubt that there is a single app in existence for iOS that hasn't at one point been run natively on an x86 based Mac.

When a developer runs an iOS app on the iPhone simulator for the Mac, they are not running on an emulator, the app is compiled as an x86 binary and linked against an x86 build of the iOS libraries.

Re:Can Apple be Far Behind?

[swb]

It kind of makes me wonder if there's an x86 iPad out there running OS X and iOS in a VM..

Re:Can Apple be Far Behind?

[ChunderDownunder]

Yep, if Microsoft's Surface Pro paradigm ever seriously threatened the iPad, Cupertino would be out with a hybrid OS at the next annual developer conference.

One OS to rule them all, Windows 8.x, is a strategy MS have copped flack for. But if there's one company that could pull it off, it's Apple with their design sensibilities as viewed through the reality distortion field.

Apple have already reskinned parts of OS X for touch - e.g. iWork and Safari, so there's enough commonality to port useful programs between platforms. The app stores are in place, what's needed is a unified API, a common subset of OS X and iOS, that deprecates any 'legacy' NextSTEP code from the 80s. They've migrated developers before with Classic and Carbon.

Not dual boot

[Immerman]

I agree dual boot for a tablet might not get a lot of use, though I could definitely see being able to reboot my tablet into windows occasionally for real work being a nice perk, instead of carrying around a laptop as well.

But this is not dual boot. Watch the video, both OSes appear to be running side by side, it only takes about 4 seconds to switch between them. More like a KVM switch between two computers built into the same tablet form factor.

And *that* I think has serious potential - android is better for the lightweight appliance stuff, and windows is right there, along with the clip-on keyboard, for when you want to get work done.

Wickedness by one small step at at time

[goombah99]

Google
goggle
guggle (flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise)
gurgle
burgle
burgee (A triangular sailing flag, a show of force by colors)
burger
burker (to murder or supress without leaving evidence)
bucker
bicker
wicker
wicked

Re:Wickedness by one small step at at time

[noh8rz10]

+1 I'll use these in WWF

Re:Wickedness by one small step at at time

[goombah99]

googly goggly giggly jiggly jingly tingly tinkly dinkly dinkey dinked winked wicked

Microsoft is not the more evil one

[Billly Gates]

They are just like Apple and now Google and every other company in existence.

They are all equal and will be assholes as soon as they have marketshare. It comes to show you that only competition frees. Even in opensource it is not good to have 1 player set standards which is evident in Xorg and the traction to stop Wayland just as an example.

So those who bash I WONT TOUCH IT BECAUSE IT IS FROM MICROSOFT!! Need to realize Android is not a savior either as Google is now being cocky since they have major marketshare.

If the situation were in reverse and Windows Mobile had 80% of the market you could bet Google would be in favor of dual boot and of course MS would fight it etc.

Re:The delay is almost certainly on technical grou

[Billly Gates]

Oh please.

Can you honestly say it is not because Windows mobile will finally be put on a tablet with a great market presence? The surface pro is full Windows 8 and too expensive for consumers. The other surface is not popular and is returned when joe six pack can not run his software on it if it is purchased.

Type 1 hypervisors run fine with performance. In type 2 hypervisors with mechanical disks on top of a host OS which is what virtualbox and VMware Workstation use is a different story. IOPS on a ssd far out exceed a traditional disk and even a raid 5 array! I have benchmarks on my system to prove it on a sans disk that is not even the top end model. I get 300 megs a second copying files.

So a tablet with this not running 2 oses on an ssd with a type 1 is doable. After all servers run like this all the time.

Re:Fork them

[noh8rz10]

There's a difference between forking android for a particular device and not having Play Store on that device, vs forking for a particular device then getting thrown out of OHA so NONE of your devices have gApps. The latter is what is going on here.

This is big nasty corporate bullying that blocks new tech and stymies innovation. Do no evil?

And I though I was old

[Overzeetop]

Laptops aren't just laptops these day - there are more and more hybrid devices which switch from laptop to tablet (a Sony Flip, for example). Sadly, operating systems for laptops (like Windows) are wholly inappropriate - or just very, very poorly optimized for tablet usage (yes, Windows again). Android is light years ahead of the Metro interface for tablet use. So it's better to be able to switch back and forth to get the best interface you can.

Sure you could reboot every time you wanted to switch, but you may as well go back to DOS and single threaded work. Why should we NOT want to be able to transition between the OS and application that fits the job the best?

Re:iOS+Windows if google fucks this up

[Overzeetop]

That works right up to the point where Apple controls every transistor on every machine that runs iOS. Even Jony and Tim won't fuck up Apple's cash cow that badly, and they done some really stupid-as-shit things since ol' Stevie boy went toes up.

Apple Owns... do they?

[Anonymous Coward]

My phone is a Galaxy Note 3. Quad core, 2+ GHz, HD display. It is extremely responsive, I like the supplied OS/app feature set (with the exception of the My Magazine bloatware from Verizon), and to make it "mine" I only had to DL five or six apps from the Play store, all free. It's light and slim, with a large display that I love. We also have iPhones in the family, so I'm quite familiar with them -- and I have a current model, maxed out iPad. So I have a basis for comparison. The notification system on the Note is far superior, for one thing, and both the email and text messaging facilities are superb. The phone portion works extremely well too. Android has come a long way from the crippled crap that infested my old Droid, and the Note hardware makes the Droid look like junk.

I really don't think Apple "owns" the high end at this point; they're dominant by virtue of a long time in the market with a good product, but there are other players and they've got some great products. I could see Android getting some real traction in this area now, and I would not have said that previously.

--fyngyrz
anon due to mod points

Re:iOS+Windows if google fucks this up

[detain]

Then it will be Windows + FirefoxOS or Ubuntus new Phone OS i hope. Wonder if its running them virtualized or if they each have their own hardware?

Nobody forces you

[drolli]

to use google closed source code if you want to run android apps on your device. Nokia/MS can do it, blackberry too, and obviously many cheap Chinese nameless devices. There are other app stores than google play.

That being said, I understand Google why i they don't like to brand a "dual boot"/"switching device which probably would suck even more power and have a more indeterministic behavior than even the most crapware-loaded samsung device.

If MS or asus likes this so much, nobody hinders them to to the right things, which are either
* give Windows the capability to execute Android Apps from the start
* make an android app which runs windows programs.

Re:Nobody forces you

[spire3661]

Not only that but now the machine will have THREE personalities. Win 8 desktop, Modern UI and Android.

Re:Nobody forces you

[drolli]

...and the manufactures own brillant vision of a "simplified" android ui...

Re:Nobody forces you

[Bing Tsher E]

...and the manufactures own brillant vision of a "simplified" android ui...

Do you mean, the manufacturer's own Android Launcher? Didn't you know you can install your own Launcher under Android? Here is a list of some of the Launchers you can install. Each one is a slightly different User Interface and many are customizable. Why would it matter what sort of broken crap the hardware vendor put on the thing. You just download a replacement.

Tablet + keyboard + trackpad

[tepples]

Android is light years ahead of the Metro interface for tablet use.

Plug a keyboard and trackpad into a tablet and is it still a tablet? I was under the impression that the traditional Windows desktop was light years ahead of Android for laptop use.

Re:Tablet + keyboard + trackpad

[Bing Tsher E]

My tablet, when I add a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to it, becomes a full Windows desktop machine if I wish. I even have Minecraft installed on it now. Installing the JVM and the Minecraft program was as easy as it was on every other Windows machine I've had. I also added emu8086 which is one of my favorite toys. Any Win32 binary will do (if it runs on Windows 7 or later)

Re:Free as in not

[Anonymous Coward]

Here it is, BTW:
http://androidpi.wikia.com/wiki/Android_Pi_Wiki

And also, well, you can try to explain to folks at Cyanogenmod that Android is not free and open, it seems they got it completely wrong...

Re:Fuck Google.

[Gavagai80]

That's not getting desperate, that's having so much money you can't think of anything more useful to do with it.

Re: Fork them

[Microlith]

This is no different than the leftists who screamed bloody murder about the PATRIOT Act because they said Bush could use it as a tool for GOP villainy who've themselves are now tight lipped in the face of ObamaNation corruption and worse.

Always amusing to see ACs spouting off with broad brushes and other batshit insanity. CAUSE EVERYTHING IS ABOUT POLITICS RIGHT!

Re:iOS+Windows if google fucks this up

[Rob Y.]

Unlikely. But your post points out the real situation. It's Microsoft that wants dual-booting phones. They can't get anybody to buy their phones, so they hope to use dual boot to encourage people to at least try their OS. Apple or Google have nothing to gain there, so Apple would never cooperate. Google has less control in this case.

But this article is about convertible laptop/tablets, and in that market, I imagine it's Asus that wants dual-booting. Anybody who would buy one of these is buying it for the Windows laptop capability. And Asus wants them to pay a premium for it to be convertible into a tablet. Other than the possibility that Asus has made it easy to share files between the Android tablet and the Windows laptop worlds, there'd be no advantage to this over a cheap laptop plus a Nexus tablet. Microsoft would probably prefer Asus to build an all Windows convertible, since again, the buyer's buying the Windows laptop. If MS can give their unpopular tablet OS a boost, that'd be preferable to them over a Windows/Android hybrid. Google might prefer an all Android convertible, though. But even they probably realize Android laptops at this point are a stretch.

In any case, we're talking about the high-end (i.e. expensive) laptop market. That's not a happy place to be these days. Cheap laptops or even Chromebooks serve the real laptop market better. Power hungry games and productivity apps do better on a desktop (and for the most part, a cheap one will do fine there too). The rest of the market is for phones and 7" tablets, and I don't see Asus pushing for dual booting there...

Embrace, extend, extinguish

[pem]

Microsoft is looking for a new revenue stream -- they would be the only software vendor taking money from Asus for this hybrid, and then it would be in their interest to make the MS part indispensible, and the Android part -- not so much.

Google understands perfectly what Microsoft is up to. Why is it evil for them to nip it in the bud?

Who even knows if Asus really wants to do this? They are not going to voice a negative opinion because they also sell Windows laptops.

And as others have pointed out, Asus is free to do this in any case -- they just can't have access to google services. Microsoft should be up for this; after all, if Amazon has the technical chops to run a third-party app store, surely Microsoft... oh, wait.

Re: Fork them

[CODiNE]

Self-proclaimed geeks and nerds supporting and defending Google - sad and mind-boggling.

Sounds like a "No true Scotsman" argument you've got there.

Re:The dual boot is stupid for a consumer device.

[Blaskowicz]

Windows 8 is "dual OS" already, running on the same NT kernel but using the "multiple personalities" feature I believe, that NT has had from the beginning. You have the desktop with a file manager and regular applications that have a "File Edit View.." menu, and the cell phone like interface and you switch between the two.
Windows 8 + Android, which runs *not dual booted* but at the same time, should rather be called a "Triple OS".

As for the market need, it should be useful for those zillion specific apps for your town's bus and train schedules, ordering stuff in a supermarket's web store, connecting to some local government/agency/social service etc.
This stuff is invariably for iOS and Android, nothing else.. For a US example, the IRS has an app for both but not a Metro app (maybe you DON'T want to keep up with the IRS or have the IRS keep up with you by means of tablet computer, it's only an example ;) )

Why would you?

[Neil Boekend]

Why would you want to run Android on a I386 processor? They may have a little more raw processing power, but they have a far higher energy footprint and not all apps (if any) will work on it.
There is a nice sentence in the specs:

By offering both operating systems, ASUS provides users the ability to run supported Android applications and a vast array of native Windows applications.

The number of supported Android apps will be limited unless they equip Android with an emulator, which costs some of the gained processing power.

Re:Why would you?

[Blaskowicz]

The new Intels (call it Atom, Silvermont or Bay Trail) are incredibly power efficient and advanced (22nm FinFET) while at the same time ARM got more power hungry than before - if you want to use Cortex A15. So I don't think we have to care very much.

Apple Insider

[ThatsNotPudding]

aka Kettle Monthly with an article shaming pots.

How you define 'evil' ...

[fygment]

... determines how you define 'not doing evil'. Google is just a big powerful corporation like Microsoft, Apple, etc. They do not care about anything but the 'bottom line'.

In the corporate 'hierarchy of needs', 'profit' is the base need that _must_ be satisfied above all else.

Blue Stacks

[pebear]

You want a machine that does Windows and Android? Blue Stacks, or put Linux on your box and hook right into Android market and still have a KVM with Windows 8.1 and blue stacks. This is the 21st Century you can have your cake and eat it too.

Google have right

[zisel]

Google have valid reason in doing that since android is bought by Google.

Re:Free as in not

[pak9rabid]

Perhaps I should have been more clear: where's the Raspberry Pi distribution that's actually useable for anything (aka, not slower than dog shit).

We need to run debian directly on phones!

[anwyn]

We need to get rid of both android and microsoft on our phones. We should be able to run any package in debian's massive repositories. Down with app stores. Up with repositories.

We need to circumvent any charming little backdoors on the modem like the replicant people just discovered. We need to run end-to-end encryption on our phones, without fear of backdoors and NSLs!

A free operating system like GNU/Linux on our phones is our only hope for security.