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The field is further narrowed by the fact that to do anything useful with the devices we're talking about, you need more code than just the one associated with SoC, to use:
-the touchscreen controller (not the most difficult one as it seems to be pretty standard, but still some work)
-the audio chip (again not too difficult, except when it comes to enabling FM radio)
-the camera chip (the worst: extremely custom hardware, very different even between two models from the same manufacturer)
-gyros and accelerometers (generally the last items taken care of, so you install the ROM and it works well, you enjoy it and then, you want to try an app which uses them... Pchhhhit.)
-NFC (secure elements ahoy - good thing it is not that useful yet! But it is not gonna stay this way forever)
...And for that you need the manufacturer to be... nice. Like "pretty please? With sugar on top". So you have not only to ask the SoC manufacturer to play nice and dump code, but also the manufacturer. Apple is completely closed, RIM too, Samsung is shitting us, LG is no better, HTC has fits, the chinese (Huawei, ZTE & al.) do not give a frak, Nokia is dead; only Sony-Ericson seemed to genuinely care. And now they are assimilated into Sony, which is rather worrying.
I will get an Xperia Z, because it uses the same SoC than the Nexus 4 and I hope there are still people from Sony-Ericson with the will to share code, but... The picture is bleak.
Edited 2013-01-08 16:15 UTC




Member since:
2005-07-08
TI pulled the plug on OMAP, and while NVIDIA still has game in the tablet segment, Qualcomm also plays well there while kinda pulling away in the phone segment. So we have Apple A-Series with PowerVR, Samsung Exynos with Mali, Qualcomm Snapdragon with Adreno, and NVIDIA Tegra with not-really-GeForce (mostly for tablets).
So AOSP should run up on stage and give Qualcomm a great big bear-hug like Microsoft did at CES last night? I imagine that keynote was quite painful for Intel to watch. Bit concerning for NVIDIA as well.
My GS3 has a Snapdragon. Had to bypass the stupid Verizon bootloader lock, but otherwise CM10 is working pretty darn well for me.