Android now available on laptops, too.
author: Anargyros Berdekas / student number: 461472 / email: 461472ab@eur.nl
Since its launch in 2008, Android has been focused on delivering a novel operating system designed with mobile devices in mind. However, the rapid growth in its popularity and the corresponding increase of apps available for Android have made a large portion of users willing to use Android both on their smart-phones but also on their computers (laptops and desktops). However, Google even until 2016, has consistently retained Android’s exclusive focus on smart-phones, without managing thus far to fully address users’ demand for Android on Laptops and Desktops with the ChromeOS operating system. However, the exclusive nature of the availability of Android on smart-phones is gradually being eroded, thanks to the effort of independent software developers in China.
One of the most promising projects attempting to make Android available on laptops and desktops is called “Android x86”. The name of the project makes reference to the CPU architecture prevalent in modern laptops and desktops, frequently referred to as “x86”, in contrast to the mobile devices architecture, usually referred to as “ARM”. The “Android x86” developers state the project’s intentions in a strict, technical language. The overall project is described as an effort to “port Android” from the ARM architecture to x86. This, although a rigorous and perhaps hard-to-comprehend language for the average user, hits the problem of availability of Android at the most crucial point: Android is impossible to simply install out-of-the-box on laptops and desktops because these computers use mainly the x86-64 (colloquially called “x64”) or x86-32 (colloquially called “x32”) CPU architecture, while mobile devices usually are based on the ARM-64 or ARM-32 architecture, produced by the firm ARM. The demand of computer users for a version of Android available on their non-hand-held devices (like laptops) is so massive, that Android x86 has become one of the most downloaded projects on sourceforge.net, a popular website for open-source software hosting (link to Android x86 on sourceforge.net: https://sourceforge.net/projects/android-x86/?source=directory). Moreover, the projects boast a remarkably good rating by users usually fluctuating between 4.5 /5 to 5/5 on sourceforge and other popular hosting websites like fosshub.com (link to Android x86 on fosshub: https://www.fosshub.com/Android-x86.html). As of October 2016, on sourceforge.net the project exceeds 25000 weekly downloads and on fosshub it has gathered more than 1,5 million downloads thus far. Android x86 is a free and open-source project, thus can be downloaded and installed by any user for free.
Another similar effort to bring Android on laptops and desktop computers is “Remix OS”. This is a version of Android x86 produced by the Chinese firm Jide Technology, with collaboration from a portion of the developers from the original Android x86 project. However, it should be noted that Remix OS, in contrast to Android x86, is not an open source project. Still, it is a free operating system that can be downloaded legally and installed by each user for free, yet offers no access to the source code of the operating system. Moreover, Remix OS attempts to offer an out-of-the-box experience targeting not just experienced users but also the mainstream, average user. The project is available both for computers, but interestingly makes a step closer to its ARM origins by offering its own compatibility for ARM like the original Android produced by Google. This project is accessible online at the firm’s website (www.jide.com/en/remixos). Favourable reviews and ratings have been given to Remix OS, in the same fashion that Android x86 has received favourable reviews. Notable among the prestigious computer magazines and websites rating Remix OS is the “The Verge” (www.theverge.com/2016/2/22/11092128/remix-os-android-desktop-mwc-2016) and the “Digital Trends” (http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/remix-os-hands-on/). Both reviews rate Remix OS very positively, indeed making the claim that it surpasses in maturity even Google’s own ChromeOS.
Overall, both “Android x86” and “Remix OS” seem to spearhead the response to a new trend among computer users: The growing desire to have accessibility to plentiful apps and features for free, in the context of an integrated computer experience across hand-held and traditional computer devices. And judging from the remarkable popularity of both projects on their hosted websites, this new trend might be a catalyst of sweeping changes in the way operating systems are marketed for the laptop and desktop market, moving away from a paid-for model towards a free (and possibly open-source model) in the near future, exactly as recently happened with Microsoft’s free offer of Windows 10.
