“Samsung has just announced one of its latest laptops: the Ativ Q. It dual-boots Android 4.2.2 and Windows 8 in a 13.3-inch device with a super high-resolution display running at 3200 x 1800. Samsung has bundled in its S Pen stylus in a magnesium device. It looks like Acer’s Aspire R7, but it’s .55 inches and 2.84 pounds so it feels a lot lighter. The Ativ Q has a unique feature that lets it switch to Android from within Windows 8. It appears to be an application that virtualizes the Android experience, with an app pinned to the Windows 8 Start Screen that launches straight into Android. It runs fullscreen, but it’s not usable it you try to snap it to the side and continue using a Windows 8 app.” Do these dual-operating system things ever sell? It does illustrate how Windows OEMs are struggling with the fact that people don’t want Windows 8 – they have to tack Android on there to lure people.
Probably fairly unlikely to be hugely successful, but as a stopgap for filling in some holes in the Windows 8 app offerings a virtualized seamless Android instance is a pretty neat idea.
So, successful in the sense that the Classic environment in OSX was successful, no one enjoyed being in Classic, everyone was happy to see it go away, but it fulfilled its purpose.
It would be interesting to see usage statistics (time spent in Windows vs. time spent in Android) for the device, and how they evolve over time.
I don’t think many people will buy this with the primary goal of running Android, because you would only end up with a very expensive Android Smartbook.
So it will probably have the same fate as the Amstrad Mega PC.
What a world we live in where you have to have a second OS because Windows doesn’t have the apps you want.
Could be said the same but replace Windows with Android.
They both have gaps but it has not to do with the operating system. Its the apps.
Android has toy apps and Windows has productive apps. Yes there are exceptions, but in general that is how it is.
For me this would be ideal:
http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ubuntu-for-android
But it looks like vaporware since they’re moving towards Ubuntu Phone which can’t run Android apps.
How are they allowed to sell dual operating systems? Doesn’t Microsoft usually forbid this, as happened with BeOS?
Edited 2013-06-21 16:54 UTC
It’s obviously running in a VM on top of Windows…
Maybe this is the fate of Windows 8:
the only foot in the door they get is as a base for a VM running other operating systems
Edited 2013-06-21 21:11 UTC
IIRC, MS isn’t allowed to do that any more after ~2000 court rulings and/or European Commission ruling.
Edited 2013-06-27 19:58 UTC
I find this interesting more for the implicit endorsement to Jolla and Tizen, both of which include “runs Android apps” as major entries on their feature lists.
While I understand Canonical’s rationale for not including Android compatibility out of the box – I suspect all Ubuntu fans want lots of native Qt goodness on our phones – I suspect the Android VM to be one of the more popular “apps” in the Software Center.
“I don’t always run non-native apps on my phone, but when I do, I run Android. Stay geeky, my friends.”
Edited 2013-06-21 21:56 UTC
Would be rather unsurprising if Dalvik Android apps became some sort of lowest common denominator for apps on new platforms, the Android stack on that level is a pretty separable and manageable piece of software.
In this case Samsung appears to virtualize the full Android, but that is probably more heavy-handed than necessary if one is willing to give up native applications (which is not a great loss since the Ativ is x86 and therefore isn’t a good place to be for most native android apps either way).