It’s a bit of a mobile day on OSNews today, with news about Cinder and Symbian. Next up is Google’s Android. While Android is designed for smartphones, there has been increasing chatter about netbook manufacturers using Android on netbooks. Google has always remained fairly mum on the possibility of Android on netbooks, but during yesterday’s earnings call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt talked about this subject.
Google is very positive about Android for this year. “Overall, it looks like Android is going to have a very, very strong year,” Schmidt said during the earnings call, “We are already aware of many, many uses of Android, which as you know is open source, where literally the devices we hear about near the announcements, so the open source part of the strategy is working.”
The netbook side of Android is mostly taking part outside of Google. “On the netbook side, there are a number of people who have actually taken Android and ported it over to netbook or netbook-similar devices,” he said, “So we think that’s another one of the great benefits of the open source model that we’ve used. We’re excited that that investment is occurring.”
Schmidt added that more announcements regarding Android and hardware are forthcoming.
Google attacks MS by search engine, email platform, maps, office suite, OS and platforms. Which seems great as is a healthy thing for market. Great to see that and my hope is that Google will represent at least one other option for regular people to use the computer.
Now that’s what I’d love to see. Apple already have a slimmed down OS X for the iPhone, just take that, remove the movement sensor, add back a normal cut/paste clipboard, keyboard and mouse support. Open a second App Store specifically for the device.
Maybe not for everyone, but I sure would be in line to get mine.
What has really put me off is the fact that to install applications I have to go either go through the App Store or hack my device up and risk brickage with the next update or upgrade.
I can understand the rationale of wanting to keep the device secure but at the same time I do think there should be a way where a person has to go out out of their way to allow manual loading of applications. Something like a weird combination of buttons getting held down during boot up and then connecting to the computer where you are given a warning and then you click “I Agree”.
It would keep the clueless users safe whilst at the same time allowing those experienced users who know what they are doing – get around the restriction in a supported manner.
You want to change a clean solution for something obscure because you don’t like to feel “fenced in” on a smartphone?
Don’t buy one. You’re the edge case. Apple aren’t targeting edge cases. You’d find something else to bitch about in the form of some obscure functionality you demand because your life on your phone isn’t complete enough.
Who is ‘bitching’? I’m not bitching about anything – I’m just offering a possible compromise that balances security with freedom. You on the other hand have jumped to the deep end and started abusing me in the post. You should have a good hard look in the mirror because this forum isn’t a place for you to beat your chest and abuse other people with differing opinions.
I’d much rather see Google officially support netbooks than let the device manufactures hack they way around.
I’d much rather see manufactures port a fully functional desktop – like, but not exclusively, Ubuntu – rather than ship a crappy hack of Xandra
That was exactly my sentiments. There seems to be a lot of buzz about Android on the netbook, but in reality even Google themselves don’t really seem interested in it. They’re just happy about the press it’s generating for their platform.
I love my ‘G1’ smart phone and Android which runs on it.
However, I don’t think Android makes a good netbook OS.
Netbooks, in my opinion, are scaled down laptops. Thus they run scaled down desktops and bloat free applications on said desktops.
Netbooks are not scales up smart phones. Netbooks have too big a display to make Android’s (and iPhone’s port of OS X) clever conservation of screen real-estate space necessary.
Even the smaller of netbook screens are big enough for a very basic desktop and task bar
Even the lowest end of netbooks are powerful enough to do proper app switching and copy/pasting.
In fact, the whole point of getting a netbook is that it’s a cheaper and more compact laptop/notebook.
If people wanted an over-sized phone then they’d buy a tablet PC with skype or ebay a retro 80’s yuppy toy.
I mostly agree with your point, but what I have in mind would be to get a user experience very close to the Psion Series 5 operating system running on Psion Netbook (yes, the original device named Netbook from 7-8 years ago). And the way the OS use the screen estate, I could see it working with a (slightly modified) iPod Touch OS X.
I know I’d love to play and code for such a device.
Not true – my netbook run OpenOffice.org
So does mine (Dell Mini-9), running Dell’s version of Ubuntu 8.04, and I have no problems with any app on that device, including OOo.
As for Andriod, I just got my G1 yesterday, and am still learning the ins and outs of it, but from what I’ve seen and worked with so far, I like it. I’m not sure if I’d like a netbook with an Andriod-based OS on it, but for a smart phone, it is pretty darned good.