Jide Technology has released Remix OS 2.0 as a free download available on January 12th designed to run on the majority of Intel and AMD devices such as PC and Mac. The company which was founded by three ex-Google employees has developed the OS thanks to a partnership with the Android-x86 project enabling it to run on almost any PC.
This is pretty much what Android on desktop and laptops – what Google itself is currently working on – is going to look like. It’s designed first and foremost for Jide’s own devices, but starting 12 January it’ll also be available for select generic x86 devices, including some Macs. There’s no proper up-to-date compatibility list as far as I can tell, so we’ll have to wait and see just how useful it can be.
It looks quite interesting, and the fact that it’s run by former Google employees gives some hope regarding its longevity and legitimacy. That being said, with Google itself working on bringing Android to desktops and laptops, you have to wonder how much longer Jide can maintain itself.
…because google employees have a good track record once they leave google….
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/technology/28cool.html
Still, I can’t ignore that’s the way people really think: Have “google” attached to the resume, you’ll more attention, just because google.
If I had enough money to build a startup by hiring former google employees, maybe I would just to exploit the apparent newsworthiness of being with former google employees.
Basically this is a move to make themselves more attractive for a bid.
Releasing the OS for free for PCs is 100% a means of getting some market share and community built up as their dedicated hardware isn’t generating the number they wanted.
Will be interesting to see if Google buy them back into the fold or if they just go it on their own.
Edited 2016-01-07 16:15 UTC
I like the idea, but from what I’ve read, there are some fairly major limitations – mainly limitations of the applications themselves. E.g.
I don’t know enough about Android development to say whether the applications need to be updated to support “desktop-y” features, or if those are limitations of the underlying frameworks & libraries that the applications use – or a bit of both. Either way, though, it’s probably not a quick & easy fix.
Please post again when I can download this to my PC for testing.
Thank you.
It’s fairly horrible. In fact, while I could be wrong, I think it’s what killed my HP Touchsmart tx1025. Everything worked flawlessly in it, I shut it down one day, and it never worked after that (like the video died or something).
I installed it because I like playing with operating systems, but Android just stinks as a laptop, and really as anything, but it’s much worse as that. I have a Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 with a keyboard as well, and it’s meh for doing normal desktop like things, but it is awesome for reading comics!
I’ve got a couple of older XP and Vista era laptops that this may work nicely with.
Run XP on them then.
I have the Remix mini. I would say its best use is as a media center. I combine it with a wireless keyboard with touchpad. You might ask – why not just use a Chromecast – which I also have. It is because not all Android apps support casting, and I don’t like screen mirroring the whole phone screen. One of my most used apps is TennisTV – works great as an Android app.
As for the “Desktopy” features, it is getting there. You can run a lot of the apps in a separate window. However, I don’t know if that really is the niche for this. It reminds be of the iPad pro – you really don’t want iOS in that setting, you want MacOS.
What I do see happening is a convergence of ChromeOS and Android into a more “Linuxy” system. This would be you GoogleOS.
Yeah, I have a Remix Mini as well. I am using it for Kodi on a spare TV in the rec room. It took a little futzing to get it working properly with DTS pass-through and upscaling but now it is pretty solid.
I hope to also use a bluetooth game controller and run emulators soon.
I agree, and we’ll see what 2.0 brings.
I just want a laptop that can turn into a tablet and dual boot this and linux mint.