While most people seem to be rooting for Android to make its debut and bridge the gap between phones and netbooks, apparently there are a few who, for varied reasons, think Android ought stay away from netbooks and stick to what it knows best: smartphones.The Engadget post by Ross Rubin says Android should stay on phones where it belongs and keep away from netbooks. It says that most people who buy netbooks want Windows on it, and therefore Android doesn’t have much of a chance. Other companies such as HP have designed their own customized versions of Linux, and it would take some time before Android customizations could become as unique. It goes on to say that Android’s browser can’t win against Firefox or Google Chrome, its screen resolution won’t do well on larger screens, and its applications aren’t interesting or efficient on a larger scale device.
The author does, however, mention that Android could possibly make a good go on “smartbooks,” MIDs, or what have you, and that if the development of Android is concentrated on smartphones and these other devices, it may one day be developed enough for the crossover to netbooks.
Now, I’d never be considered any sort of OS developer by any means, and I haven’t had the chance to actually use Android myself, so this ought to be taken with a grain of salt, but I disagree with the above. Certainly it was first designed for smartphones back when it was first released, and it’s not currently at a stage where it would run well on netbooks. Those are fact. However, we’ve seen plenty, individuals and OEMs alike, who have been tinkering with putting the system on netbooks and other devices. Even the people at Google have mentioned the possibility. The technilogical world at large has been buzzing about the thought for months, and it’s in the works as it is. There are already several netbooks scheduled to be released with Android as the default OS, and there will be more to come. Android may not be ready just now, but that isn’t to say that nobody’s developing it to be ready by next year or even later this year. The name of “Android” is a buzz word already; the phone’s already been pretty successful and is still spreading the word. A netbook branded with that name, though definitely no match for Windows at this time, would do well.
The concluding paragraph from the article:
So stick with smartphones, Android. There’s lots of opportunity there for the near-term, and as the screens and market share of Android devices grow, they may just encourage development of more kinds of applications that would cross over better to the laptop world. Today, though, Android simply lacks the muscle, momentum, and marketplace to be a strong contender on netbooks.
To Android, I would say to keep working in the smartphones field by all means. We’ve already seen it successful there. I furthermore implore Android to keep up the good work to cross over to netbooks as well. Several OEMs already have Android netbooks coming, the system has enough flexibility to change and has been in the process of development for some time for netbooks, and it’s not as if applications found on other operating systems can’t be brought to Android– this is Linux we’re talking about. Give it some time, but don’t not work toward the goal; there’s too much muscle, momentum, and marketplace to let it go to waste.
What do you, the reader, think about Android’s crusade? Should more development be concentrated in the smartphone area, or should Android keep where it’s going towards netbooks?
I personally would never want Android running on my netbook. As much as I love the OS and my G1, it’s just not going to touch a proper (albeit streamlined) desktop OS in terms of power and features.
However, a some-what elitist side of me would rather see Android succeed on netbooks than Windows because I’d love to see Microsoft’s dominance shaken properly and users aware of the choice they have in OSs rather than running Windows just because it comes preinstalled and they know little else.
Android as it is on the G1 would not be great, but this would be solved by porting android to a real OS distribution (I think this has already been done; I recall Ubuntu working on this), and somehow making it possible to run Skia and X11 apps at the same time. Then, you can have the best of both worlds.
That is what Canonical is doing … creating a runtime environment on top of *buntu that allows you to run Android apps at the same time as normal Linux apps.
That is not what some of the netbook OEMs are doing, though. They are porting Android to netbook hardware, and planning to run just plain Android on the bare metal. Thus, you can only run Android apps on the netbook.
But then you’ve just got a standard desktop Linux with Android application support – which is hardly the same as running Android .
Personally, I love the Android UI because of its simplicity; before android I had been advocating for Qtopia (now Qt Extended) would have been a better graphic user interface for the Netbook; couple that with a high optimised Linux kernel at the heart specifically built for specific models of netbooks – it would step up and challenge Microsoft in the netbook world.
Whilst geeks like you and me may love to have the flexibility and power that comes with having a full fledged operating system – at the same time a simplified easy to use interface that does a small set of things very well would be the best option for end users who just want a machine they can load up, jump on and do their stuff then close the lid at the end.
I know there is the temptation to add heaps of features and power to a device but the one thing one can learn from Apple is when to say ‘no’, when to say, ‘the customer doesn’t need it’. It sounds patronising I know, but at the same time, it doesn’t help the situation trying to believe that the end user knows or cares whether they can delve into the bowls of the operating system – if it does what they want, that is all that matters.
… isn’t Android itself. IMO, the problem, as TFA says, are the apps. People won’t be using Android on their netbooks just because it’s Android, they’ll only use it if the OS offers apps they find useful. Given the fact that most Android Apps are targetting smartphones, I’m afraid that won’t be the case.
To make a long story short: Android looks great for mobile devices. Netbooks, while being very “mobile” size-wise, are able to run full blown desktop OSes and apps. And that’s why people like them: Almost desktop-like capabilities with great mobility and good prices.
So, for the time being, Linux and Windows will remain as better options for the netbook segment, IMHO.
It seems to all be about names, Microsoft (Windows) is a name and Google (Android) is a name. That seem to be the only reason people are so excited. They imagine all kinds of things, but don’t really think it through.
I don’t know why you got modded down because I think there’s alot of sense in what you say.
Consumers like brands, and Google is a recognised and trusted brand. So it makes marketing sense to sell netbooks with a ‘Google’ brand (or Microsoft brand) rather than a ‘Linux’ brand who is either unheard of or has a bad (read: unfair) reputation amongst n00bs
Exactly right; Android on netbooks is just marketing. Moblin is already designed for netbooks and porting Moblin to ARM has got to be easier than porting Android to netbooks.
While we are at names, isn’t it “Back off Android” a rather silly title? I mean Android is an OS, you can’t really tell it to back off, can you? Of course I understand what the author meant: Back off Asus, back off Acer, back off HP, back off… But if we put it that way, the point the article tries to make is nonsense. What was the author thinking?
Besides, there is a huge difference between Android and other mobile OSs that the article completely disregards: scalability. Being based on linux Android can easily scale up whereas symbian or even Windows Mobile (that has little in common with XP or Vista) cannot. And I’m not talking about major library/components support, I’m talking about functionality. Most of the functionality a user expects from a netbook can be easily provided by linux applications – full multimedia support, browsing support, personal information management including IMs, emails, VoIP, wordprocessing – everything any significant performance loss. The flexibility of linux and its development model allows for less bloat (you don’t need to run a full-blown KDE or GNOME desktop) to get the functionality you need. Think about LxDE for GTK fans or KDE4 technologies, which are amazingly scalable and flexible – see this article for details about the latter:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-kde-plasmoids/?ca…
I’d be interested in seeing what came of this. Right now I wouldn’t agree with plopping Android onto a netbook and telling customers to run with it.
But if someone put the time into making some new of it using the tech foundations of Android I think something great could come out of it.
Look at Apple and the iPhone.. it’s not Mac OS X exactly on the iPhone, but a lot of what makes Mac OS X retuned for another device. Granted, that was a Desktop OS properly streamed to a small device and this would essentially be the opposite of that.
Edited 2009-06-17 19:45 UTC
They maybe good at making cheap reliable hardware, BUT they SUCK AT SOFTWARE!
With some OEM you wouldn’t get a iPhoneOS 3.0 for old products, because they don’t f*cking care once the thing has shipped. That is something they fundamentally don’t get, that you have you support your platform. Just look at Xandros, Linpus etc.
So Google would have to demand from vendors that they ship new versions of Android for old devices. They can do it with the telecoms and OHA members, but I am skeptic that some small chinese OEM can be forced to ship a new versions. They just don’t care.
Sorry to point out the obvious, but so is Android.
Android is just Linux (as desktop / server OS) that’s been “properly streamed to a small device”.
No it wouldn’t. It would returning to it’s previous incarnation.
It would be like taking the iPhone’s OS and porting it to run on a Macbook when you can already get a desktop install of OS X.
Hmm this is literally correct, but not exactly the same situation. iPhone OS shares much in common with OS X both at the kernel level and the API level. They’re not exactly the same, and the iPhone supports a limited subset of the Mac APIs, but what it does support is quite similar and of course it has several APIs of its own.
Android does run on a Linux kernel, yes, but it is not any of the common desktops or widget toolkits streamed down to a smaller device. If you write an Android app, you write it with the Android API in Java. This API does not resemble GTK, QT, or any of the other common desktop toolkits. So while Android is a Linux environment designed for small devices, it is not a major desktop environment properly streamlined for a smaller device.
The iPhone is to OS X, roughly speaking, as Windows Mobile is to desktop Windows–similar in many respects, but very different in interface and several programming APIs. Android is in a class all its own really, as it does not share even a limited subset of another system’s API. For all intents and purposes, Android should be considered an environment, not an os. It could run on any kernel if there was an Android VM available for that kernel or architecture.
That’s an argument against everything else, Ubuntu included. I don’t think it’s an argument that many people here would have a great deal of sympathy for. Certainly I can understand that people want Windows but that’s not enough reason to abandon exploring alternatives.
The second argument – that Android’s browser is sub-par – seems short sighted. The current crop of applications is designed for phones. Surely Google must have an Android build of Chrome just waiting in the wings for a machine with the muscle to run it?
Frankly I’m a little miffed that people have largely given up on the idea of having something other than Windows on netbooks. That said, I’m writing this from XP on my netbook. But there’s really only one reason for that – Flash video. It struggles under Windows but it curls up and dies on other OSs. And right now it’s all over the web.
smartphone, i guess. mid, sure. as a desktop OS? never.
it just isn’t the right fit for several reasons. not to mention, with Canonical working on a way to run android apps, there may be no need.
1) application support. there is a certain expectation of functionality when sitting in front of a device with a large (relatively speaking) screen and a keyboard. if i can’t get to a terminal, with full control of my computing experience, then i’m not happy.
2) privacy. i recently saw a quote (can’t find the link at the moment… anybody remember?) from somebody at google specifically stating that they were planning on using android to leverage their advertising business. though they weren’t specific, i certainly don’t want to be tracked with the kind of pervasiveness that a google-owned OS could enable.
3) it just hasn’t been around long enough to ‘prove’ itself.
4) it’s not just a prettied-up linux. yes, it runs the linux kernel, but with a very custom bsd userland. it won’t be quite as easy to port existing apps that people will want to use than it would be if running moblin or some flavor of ubuntu.
in spite of the recent push for wireless carriers to subsidize netbooks and push their own 3G data services, i really don’t think i’m willing to open the door to hardware lockdown like we’ve seen with mobile phones (at least in the US). using android, thus far a smart phone os, only seems to reinforce this idea.
am i basing my statements on my own paranoia? of course i am! but, it’s pretty well justified, and definitely worth being wary about.
I am perfectly agreeing with Ross Rubin – author of the original article. I, and few others, don’t go with the mainstream. What matters is the pure reason. Here we have something that lacks everything. Despiting this fact someone wants to put it on the netbook. This is really bad idea (not mentioning the fact that it makes google position even stronger, which is not good at all). Android is a great misunderstanding when it comes to the netbooks, it can be a valuable option for the smartphones though.
And the most important part: I – personaly – don’t want to change my netbook [which is Lenovo S10e] to the giant smartphone on steroids. This is pointless, as the reason to have a netbook is quite opposite, at least for me. I want to have a miniature of fully functional notebook computer, not a huge, crippled calculator.
Edited 2009-06-17 20:43 UTC
The problem with the idea is that it assumes a netbook has more in common with a smartphone than a regular laptop, which is just silly. Smartphones don’t have keyboards, trackpads, ethernet, and support for external monitors, nor the ability to run all the same software as my desktop box. Netbooks do.
I just don’t understand people who keep making this kind of argument (“why do they waste they time since *I* am sure Android is not fit for netbooks?”).
People try and port Android to other hardware architectures or to other markets because… Whatever. They may think it can serve purpose unknown to you. It may just be the challenge. It may just be out of boredom or curiosity. They have their own legitimate reasons, which no one has real legitimacy to challenge since they are not stated in this OSNews article, and they do what they want of their (free) time.
Some may have a hard time imagining Android being useful on a netbook? Well, let them blame their lack of imagination. Who can tell today what shape Android will take once adapted to the netbook microcosm? We’re talking open source, here! How can one preemptively judge something one doesn’t know the future of? I also think that blaming any other than one’s own subordinates for not directing their energy at something one would find useful is nothing but a display of pretentiousness in the considered context.
I don’t have a netbook, and may not ever have one. So I will not work at porting Android to netbooks. Still, I am curious of what will come out of it, and will welcome the unavoidable improvements and knowledge this effort will bring to the Linux, netbook, and Android communities and code bases at large. I would not want to discourage that in any way.
As I was told when I was a child, “even if YOU don’t like it, don’t cause disgust to others” (literally translated from French, sorry).
As it is reported here, I have absolutely NO incentive to read the original article. If I had the feeling that it was intended to nurture discussions about where to go regarding Android on netbooks and how to get there then I would have found it interesting. As it is, I think it’s sterile.
Then again, who am I to judge? Am I not having towards this kind of articles the very same attitude its author has towards Android on Netbook?
*sigh* Life can get so complicated at times… 2147 characters an I eventually shoot myself in the foot. I’d better go to bed, I guess.
… and this is crucial.
Wow. You seem to be anticonformist. You disagree only to disagree, which is pointless.
Edited 2009-06-17 21:51 UTC
Regardless if Android is a hit on netbooks or not, I think it is interesting that we are witnessing the beginning of the blurring of mobile computing platforms. Smartphones have their turf, and laptops have theirs, but everyone seems a bit confused where on the spectrum netbooks / smartbooks fit. I think we live in very interesting times. Smartphone OS’s (like Android) are re-imagining the user interface in new and interesting ways. Personally, I think the players that will come out on top, will be the ones who understand their users best, those who understand what people want from their mobile technology.
I don’t own a cellphone, but I have a laptop. I would certainly not mind if it weighed less, and laster longer on a battery charge. Isn’t a matter of time then, when netbooks and laptops collide? And what will happen then?
Let’s not lose focus here. Whether you are using a netbook, a laptop, or a smartphone, it’s all just a means to an end — your media, and your web presence. Users mostly just want a seemless way to consume media, look-up stuff, and stay in-touch. Some solutions make this easier than others – they are the solutions that know best how to anticipate the user, and then get out of the user’s way.
“What do you, the reader, think about Android’s crusade? Should more development be concentrated in the smartphone area, or should Android keep where it’s going towards netbooks?”
If someone wants to run Android (or whatever) on a device be it smartphone or netbook, who the hell am I or anyone else to tell them to back off?
Android will be tailored to fit just fine in a netbook or smartbook. It will be fast and easy and cute, but will have few apps available. In comparison, Ubuntu or Fedora have tons of free apps available, and can also work fine in limited hardware. Why the disinterest, then, when they are available now and come with no strings attached?
I think it is the shop that is important. Android comes with a built in storefront with abundant commercial software. Free software for Android is unsophisticated and unpolished. No OpenOffice? Don’t worry, there’s Google Docs, and if that is not sufficient, then there’s QuickOffice for $50. No Gimp? No cry, Android will come with some sort of Picasa for simple photo editing, and there will be something slightly more sophisticated for $25 in the store.
Unlike Linux, where there’s a powerful free alternative for many software packages, Android could move a lot of money in paid for software. Under its Free Software shell, it will open up a world of simple apps at moderate prices that can be impulse-bought over the air. It is an economic model that the iPhone has proven to be eye poppingly successful. And with money behind, from Google, from software developers, from computer manufacturers, from cellphone operator, it can receive the marketing support that is missing in Linux and that could give Android traction.
So, I think Android is technically impressive and will get to be technically excellent. It will work on a wide array of mostly inexpensive hardware, ARM, MIPS or x86, settop, desktop, laptop, MID or handheld. AND, it will have a Name and create a market. Standard Linux cannot beat that, even if it is cheaper and technically superior.
The most common pitfall with linux was always the lack of modern, easy (well documented, tool supported) and stable api for end user applications.
Android seems to have fixed it and I guess when talking about putting it on non-handheld devices this fact should be regarded mostly taken into account.
With phone resolutions topping at 800×480 we may reach the convergence sooner that we think.
I don’t know about the layout flexibility of such applications but netbook screen sizes (1024/600) weren’t best suitable for contemporary app sizes either.
on the DE side. They failed with gOS. And now with a smartphone OS, they will have another shot a cloud computing in the masses via the hype over Android on netbooks. AFAIK, when Android hits netbooks and IF it takes off…the full desktop OS will be on the way.
Android may not be ready right now. BUt give it a facelift and a few procedures of surgery, it will compete well with Windows on the netbook. All it takes is one other competitor with more to offer and the masses will be on Android in no time. Especially given that Google provides so many services on systems now.
Pretty soon this will be a debate on Google and a new monopoly.
THink about it, they will provide you with OS, Browser, Apps, and all. In not time Google will come through with hardware and it’s a wrap.
plus one for Android in the mindshare dept, minus one in reality. Overall, i dont own anything google except for a gmail but i root for Android to go as far as it can only to the extent that it competes and provides a reliable alternative to anything windows.