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Google To Bring Official Android Support To the Raspberry Pi 3 (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: The Raspberry Pi 3 is not hurting for operating system choices. The tiny ARM computer is supported by several Linux distributions and even has a version of Windows 10 IoT core available. Now, it looks like the Pi is about to get official support for one of the most popular operating systems out there: Android. In Google's Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository, a new device tree recently popped up for the Raspberry Pi 3. The AOSP device tree contains mostly Nexus devices with the occasional "generic" entry or developer board tossed into the mix. It's rare to see a non-Google device in AOSP, so it seems Google has taken quite a shine to the tiny computer. With officially supported source code, it should be much easier for hackers to get Android up and running on the Pi 3. And once that's done, you should be able to sideload more than 1.5 million apps onto the Pi to make the device do whatever you want.

59 comments

  1. Strawberry Fields Forever! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dakota.

    Ono.

    OH NO!

  2. LOL ANDROID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Who wants to run shitty phone games on a Raspberry Pi? Install Windows 10 IoT and you can be playing real games like Halo on a $35 computer!

    1. Re:LOL ANDROID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      It's always nice seeing the mentally challenged like yourself try to troll tech sites. I applaud you for the effort. Make sure you keep your mother's basement clean, son.

    2. Re:LOL ANDROID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Peddle your mind numbing idiocy somewhere else.

      This is a great way to give developers access to Android on a real ARM machine without having to root an expensive or contractually-bound phone.

    3. Re:LOL ANDROID by chr1st1anSoldier · · Score: 0

      If I had any mod points I'd give them all to you

    4. Re:LOL ANDROID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think Android Auto on a Raspberry Pi for my car would be amazing.

    5. Re:LOL ANDROID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Peddle your mind numbing idiocy somewhere else.

      This is a great way to give developers access to Android on a real ARM machine without having to root an expensive or contractually-bound phone.

      If a company can't afford a phone it can't afford the much more expensive developer either.
      A Raspberry Pi doesn't even have the same sensors or screen as any phone on the market, using it as your development platform would be beyond stupid.

    6. Re: LOL ANDROID by eneville · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      That's the point. The RPI can use externally controlled sensors, rather than true phone sensors.

    7. Re:LOL ANDROID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > A Raspberry Pi doesn't even have the same sensors or screen as any phone on the market, using it as your development platform would be beyond stupid.

      The RPi has a vast array of sensors and other electronics available to be plugged in or connected. These may be not available on any phone - yet. That is the _point_ of development - to work on new stuff that will be available in the future.

      But then you will never be an actual developer, you just don't see the point.

    8. Re:LOL ANDROID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You realize that the Pi is targeted at hackers and hobbyists right? They don't hire developers. They buy their own hardware. The cheaper the better.

  3. More choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    More choice for what is essentially a "hackers" device. It isn't a bad thing!

    1. Re:More choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      It's an attempt by Google and Microsoft to get CONTROL over that market.

      By waiving a lot of money in the faces of the PI developers, they hope to make them cave and turn control over to them, by agreeing to some terms and conditions. That's where ti starts.

  4. Sideload? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Surely if Google support it then you just download then in a sane fashion from the play store. And this should be pretty awesome since the Pi could run YouTube, Netflix, Kodi, pretty much anything that Android supports.

    1. Re:Sideload? by ScienceofSpock · · Score: 1

      Build me an in-dash car computer out of a fire stick.

    2. Re:Sideload? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Fire Stick seems to be a fairly walled off device. Android is at least neutral, with apps for, for example (since you brought it up) pretty much all the streaming services bar Microsoft and Apple's (and I suspect a Microsoft streaming app for Android will exist in time.)

      Whether there's a significant advantage over a Roku stick though is another issue...


      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    3. Re:Sideload? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are able to side load on a firestick.

    4. Re:Sideload? by tepples · · Score: 0

      You are able to side load on a firestick.

      That's fine if the app's publisher makes an APK available. A lot of applications are available only through Google Play Store.

    5. Re:Sideload? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

      It's not that hard to get the APK off a rooted phone that already has the app.

    6. Re:Sideload? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Fire Stick can already do all of this

      What sort of GPIO does the Fire Stick have ? How do you connect sensors, relays and motors ?

      None? Can't? What part of 'all' are you misrepresenting.

    7. Re:Sideload? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and muzzle load, mag load, bolt load...oh wrong firestick. I'll stick with my muzzle loads, much more fun :)

    8. Re:Sideload? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's extremely apparent to me that you can't follow a thread worth a damn. From the OP: "Surely if Google support it then you just download then in a sane fashion from the play store. And this should be pretty awesome since the Pi could run YouTube, Netflix, Kodi, pretty much anything that Android supports."

      Are we talking about a car computer here? No. Don't be a moron about what conversation we are having.

    9. Re:Sideload? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Let me rephrase so as not to be "Offtopic": Has Google clarified whether "Official Android Support" for RPi includes Google Play Store or is only AOSP?

  5. Yay more Google stories! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Yay! Long live googledot!

    captcha: languish

  6. Keep platforms up to date...or support Pi makers? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    >> Google To Bring Official Android Support To the Raspberry Pi 3
    >> Google Steps Up Pressure on Partners Tardy in Updating Android

    OK, Google. Which is it? (Because I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of Pi "makers" who never touch a thing once they get their shoestring operations working.)

  7. Great, But.... by bobbied · · Score: 0

    Will the battery last very long on my Pi running Android?

    Will there be support for any cellular devices so I can talk, text and/or run data any time soon?

    Will it work outside when it's 110 in the shade?

    Face it, the Pi is not much more than a toy, a cheap learning device used to teach in places where the cost of even a low end computer is too much. Great for teaching and learning, not so great as a basis of any kind of practical commercial hardware design.

    Adding Android to the stable of operating systems you can load up on a Pi is more about learning what porting an operating system takes, and less about the applications one might develop, install and/or run on it. So this is a win for the student and hobbyist, but not worth much beyond being a rapid prototype test bed for the commercial world.

    BTW... I'm fully aware that the Pi is not generally run on batteries... Not that you can't, only that it's not commonly done that way because it usually depends on a 5V supply, which is hard to get from the modern mass produced batteries of today...

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Great, But.... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      So this is a win for the student and hobbyist, but not worth much beyond being a rapid prototype test bed for the commercial world.

      Seeing as how the Pi is designed to democratize access to hardware for students and hobbyists, I'm not sure Google is too worried about that.

      Somebody who wants a commercial run of units can have a machine custom-built in China for less than the Pi3 costs.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:Great, But.... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Will they support "standard" IO hats, like the sense modules with accel, gyro, etc.?

      I think not for a very long time - which makes many of the interesting apps not interesting at all.

    3. Re:Great, But.... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      "Will the battery last very long on my Pi running Android?"
      The Pi does not come with a battery so what are you talking about?

      "Will there be support for any cellular devices so I can talk, text and/or run data any time soon?"
      Huh??? Use a USB cellular modem and VOIP?

      "Face it, the Pi is not much more than a toy, a cheap learning device used to teach in places where the cost of even a low end computer is too much. Great for teaching and learning, not so great as a basis of any kind of practical commercial hardware design."
      Uhhh...... It is a practical commercial hardware design and has sold a lot of units. The Pi 3 is not designed to be the heart of a commercial hardware design. You can use it as a prototype and then buy the parts and use the pi as a reference design. You can use it as the heart of one off commercial design.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    4. Re:Great, But.... by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      I did some testing on my Raspberry Pi running on a pair of 18650 Li-Ion batteries inside a generic USB charger and I got about 5.5 hours while the Raspberry Pi was mostly idle. With the Raspberry Pi running Quake 3 Demo loop, I was able to keep it running for about 4.5 hours. I don't think the Raspberry Pi supports really low power modes, or the operating system never puts it in low power like most phones do, because on a similar amount of battery power most phones would probably at least stay alive for an entire day when they are idle. Especially because I wasn't running a screen or any radios while using the Raspberry Pi.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    5. Re:Great, But.... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Not really. The Pi is purpose built as a way to train programmers and is not well suited for interfacing to the outside world. Sure, you can buy add on cards that do things like buffer the I/O pins and provide power and the like, but If you are a business concern, there are much better suited devices than the Pi to consider which are from manufacturers who are interested in the same issues you are. If you end up using the Pi, you will be stuck re-engineering the thing to do just about anything I can imagine is useful commercially, and I can imagine a lot.

      Say, for instance, you had a "smart appliance" idea where you where trying to add some kind of smart display to a kitchen appliance, put it on the customer's WiFi network and do some kind of wizardry. Yes, you could use your Pi, drop on a pre-made touch screen, hack up some user interfaces, but try doing that and then adding a couple of channels of inputs for a couple of sensors and a couple of outputs to turn stuff on and off and you are doing some serious prototype design just to get the Pi off the ground. There are prototype ready kits out there from Intel (and other chip makers) which may be a few thousand dollars so hobbyist's don't use them, but are purpose built for this kind of work and well worth the cost for the commercial concern. They come with pre-designed and proven interfaces you can use off the shelf saving time and money. You can use a Pi, but it's going to cost you.

      So, I'm not dissing the Pi, it's great for what it's built for. I'm just saying that it's not really the proper tool for designing and prototyping embedded computer systems. It wasn't built for that...

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    6. Re:Great, But.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > The Pi 3 is not designed to be the heart of a commercial hardware design.

      Citrix, and many others, disagree with you.

    7. Re:Great, But.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well... if you want battery/screen/keyboard/portable (sort of), get an old Motorola Lapdock for their Bionic/Atrix phones. With the right connecting cables/adapters for HDMI, USB (takes a bit of eBay/Amazon searching to uncover micro female HDMI and USB...) you can power a Pi on the go, as well as get the video on the screen, and control it with the mouse/keyboard in a not too kludgy way. I have a Pi 2 with this setup running Ubuntu 15.10 Mate pretty well - wondering why that cannot run this new Android-to-be offering as with the RPi 3? I thought the main differences between the 2 were the built-in Wifi and Bluetooth on the RPi 3 - guess I need to review the details of the diffs more...

  8. Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is absolutely no reason any OEM should still be selling new models running kitkat or earlier. in my opinion they shouldn't even still be selling lolipop.

  9. Re:Keep platforms up to date...or support Pi maker by squiggleslash · · Score: 1
    There's no contradiction. The second article says "partners", not "end users". It's talking about Samsung or Coolpad, not you.



      • .

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    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  10. Re:Keep platforms up to date...or support Pi maker by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    RPi boots from an SD-Card. Anyone can download and upgrade, without any help from the manufacturer.

  11. Re:Keep platforms up to date...or support Pi maker by cdrudge · · Score: 1

    If the makers never touch a thing and upgrade to the latest version, that's on the makers not Google. Google just needs to provide the long term support to allow makers to upgrade if they choose.

    The 2nd article you mention is for OEMs and carriers that abandon support for a phone about 2 seconds after they launch the phone. Google publishes the updates, but it's up to the OEMs and carriers to integrate those fixes into their product lines.

    My flagship Galaxy S4 for T-Mobile came with 4.2.2 JellyBean in mid 2013. 2 years later it had been upgraded all the way to 4.4.4 where it made it ultimately up to 4.4.4 Kitkat by September 2015 where it never has progressed past. Lollipop was available in October 2014 and Marshmallow in October 2015. Yet nothing for my phone. It wasn't that I elected not to upgrade, it was just that there was no official update available.

  12. Media Codecs by ERJ · · Score: 1

    I'll be curious if they manage to support the media codec framework. Broadcom opened up some of the internals for the VideoCore for handling graphics acceleration but they have held onto the codec support for licensing reasons.

  13. Corrected headline: by kheldan · · Score: 1

    Google To Surveil Raspberry Pi 3 Users Via Android Operating System

    Or, alternately:

    Google To Add Raspberry Pi 3 To It's Global Botnet

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  14. With 1GB, meh by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Let me know when they have a Pi 3 with 2GB or more. With only 1GB, Android is awful. 1GB was OK until KitKat... now it isn't. 1GB is spacious with ICS, but not with LP...

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  15. whoopdy fucking do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Still no 64-bit kernel?

    1. Re:whoopdy fucking do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is the CPU 64 bit? I doubt it

  16. Pi lasts over 13 hours for me on battery... by rklrkl · · Score: 1

    With a Xiaomi 10000 mAh power bank attached to my Pi 2 Model B running Raspbian desktop (but idle, other than a script writing the uptime to a file every minute), I got 13 hours and 46 minutes before the power ran out. I wonder if the Pi port of Android will support the Pi 2 Model B too? It'll be annoying if it doesn't, because the Pi 3 wasn't a massive upgrade over the Pi 2 Model B.

    1. Re:Pi lasts over 13 hours for me on battery... by jaklode · · Score: 1

      Are you crazy? The Pi 3 was a massive upgrade. It switches to 64-bit Core A53 (a different CPU instruction set!!!), boosts CPU frequency by 300 MHz; RAM is twice as fast; and it has 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth.

    2. Re:Pi lasts over 13 hours for me on battery... by Predius · · Score: 1

      As of now, the Pi 3 is running the exact same kernel and binaries as the Pi 2 thanks to the Foundation deciding that 64bit support isn't relevant to their intended uses of the device. Until they or the community figures out a 64bit safe bootloader and ports a kernel, no 64bit love for you. If it'll run on the Pi 3 it'll run on the Pi 2 currently.

      (Don't get overly jazzed about the 802.11n support, it's fed by a slightly hotted up serial connection so...)

    3. Re:Pi lasts over 13 hours for me on battery... by rklrkl · · Score: 1

      And yet three seriously weak points of the Pi 2, namely the 1GB RAM (I'd far rather have 2GB RAM than "faster" 1GB RAM, especially with a 64-bit CPU), 100 Mbit/sec Ethernet (ruling out the Pi as a fast fileserver - can't believe Gigabit costs much more) and the pitiful USB (2 - In this day and age ) weren't upgraded at all. If they fix these three, I'll be first in line for the Pi 4.

  17. Re:That's awesome... by jaklode · · Score: 2

    Videos of Natalie Portman are blocked. It only allows you to watch Nathan Fillion.

  18. I call bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With a Pi 2, the official 7" touchscreen display, a wifi dongle, and a software defined radio connected, all actively running as an ADSB receiver, I got 8 hours on a single 16800mAh battery pack. That was with some charge left over. Something wrong with your batteries/charger if you got only 5.5 hours on two of those, especially if it was "...while the Raspberry Pi was mostly idle." Without the display and the SDR, running headless with two wifi adapters and the Pi Camera, I got nearly 12 hours before I left work and I still had around 50% on the battery.

  19. Re:Keep platforms up to date...or support Pi maker by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

    What's cool is that you can just swap the SD card to run a different OS, so you can have a wallet of SD cards with different OSes to run.

  20. The HW may not be fast enough for a new OS by tepples · · Score: 1

    Wirth's law may be blocking these devices from getting an upgrade to the next major version of Android if the device's RAM size or disk performance does not meet the minimum system requirements of the next major version. I can speak from experience that for some devices, though an update was issued, it never should have been. Android 4.4 "KitKat" on the Nexus 7 (2012) "grouper" tablet is fine; Android 5 "Lollipop" on the same hardware is a jank-fest, with the UI often freezing for five or ten seconds at a time. All reports that I've read imply that the jankiness is caused by ASUS cheaping out on slow NAND flash memory. Clearing the cache helps some but not all users in this situation. It's like the last version of iOS that Apple releases for a given iPhone model: its increased system demands often bog down the UI to the point where some users end up assuming it is an intentional measure to get people to replace otherwise working hardware.

    1. Re: The HW may not be fast enough for a new OS by untoreh+ · · Score: 1

      I believe the fact that the majority of devices don't get many if at all android upgrades is dued to a combination of these: - the thing that changes in between android releases is the Linux kernel. and possibly some security features, and performance requirements to run the latest and greatest push notification animation - but since the world of smartphones hardware has zero standards the drivers get pretty much written for that android version and be done with it, this drives the costs of mantaining kernel branches for the particular hardware way high, and why waste all that money when you can just put your engineers to work on the ROM for your new phone? - android keeps releasing versions more and more demanding, feels like it has come to rival windows in resource requirements , a desktop os... some people say it is to brute force some bottlenecks (or bugs depending from your point of view ), and refuses to provide a devbed for a lite version with like minimal graphics and services. Ubuntu is literally going backwards. They started saying the time for android has passed and a mobile device could easily run a PC os and they are now making their own locked down version of the Linux kernel. I dream of the day I can just buy a device plug it in my PC, install whatever distro I feel like, install sensors drivers through a couple of packages, rebuild the initramfs and try a DE touch oriented. Without unlocking bootloaders, void warranties and what not.

    2. Re:The HW may not be fast enough for a new OS by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      For some phones, I'd agree. For my Galaxy S4, I ran a debloated "Google Play Edition"-like custom firmware with Lolipop without any issues for a good portion of the time I owned it. Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T also had no problems releasing Lollipop for their branded S4, just the T-Mobile model that refused too. I don't think Wirth's Law will explain why 3 major carriers can run it fine with almost identical hardware while the 4th can't/won't.

  21. Re:That's awesome... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 0

    Irrelevant. We want videos of Mae Ling Mak, not newb stuff.

  22. Re:I thought you might like to know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But you like Müsli, with a hint of raspberry on a circular bowl, served to you by an android in a Swiss ski resort?

  23. Touchscreen display by backslashdot · · Score: 1

    Nobody cares about making cheap touchscreen displays. You can't manufacture a cheap consumer product out of the raspberry pi because adding a display increases to cost too much.