http://liliputing.com/2014/09/now-can-run-android-apps-chromebook.htmlhttp://liliputing.com/2014/09/intel-atom-cherry-trail-14nm-chips-coming-2015....One of the big differences in ARM/Google and Intel/Microsoft is the extreme amount of dubious future brown vapor put out by Intel/Microsoft and the
extremely slow rate of improvement Intel/Microsoft can barely manage to do.
Let's use Cherry Trail & Sophia as an example. First, Cherry Trail was due in late 2013 or early 2014 as 14nm and Sophia was due to be 10nm by 2015. Then earlier this year Sophia was supposed to be built first of the two, hitting late in this current year at 28nm made at TSMC with Sophia being designed and built by Rockchip (in a cooperative integrated design effort which is apparently somewhat aborted at this point in time).
Sophia was originally a phone chip, then a tablet chip then a lowball integrated cell phone chip by Rockchip / TSMC and now it is all Intel designed and built again (but only at 14nm) as is true for the whole 6 deep lot of these processors (and some of them do smell sorta chromebookish around the edges now too).
None of the 6 deep lot of them STILL have been built yet in any real form at all .... but the little brown vapor poots jest keep on 'a coming, one right after another as the months
and now the years have rolled on by.
2015 is the earliest arrival for any of the chipsets now. Let's contrast this protracted confusing 2 year long dotted brown vapor trail from Intel/MS against what ARM/Google does, time after time. Give you a feel for just how fast and good ARM/Google/Android/Chrome can be when developing something nifty neat.
There are lots of projects cooking at Google all the time, we hear about them percolating along but whenever one gets about ready to pop out of the toaster, Google announces and passes it out with real running examples
at a Google I/O programmers conference so as to let the programmers get a look at it first and get their feedback. The news isn't for the general public,
it is for the programmers and the news is treated that way by dispersing it "hands on" at the I/O conference.
Yup, just like they did two months ago with them Android apps running both on-line
and offline inside of bone stock standard Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.
"In case you were wondering how you can run apps designed for one operating system on an entirely different OS, it’s because ARC (Android Running in Chrome) is basically an app that now runs on Chrome and allows Android apps to run as if your Chromebook were an Android device. Developers don’t need to make any changes to their Android apps — although Google is still working with developers to bring select apps to the Chrome Web Store for now. That’ll probably help ensure that you don’t end up trying to load apps that don’t work well on devices that may not have a touchscreen." So, Google builds the ARC tool (Android Running in Chrome) announces it at the programmers conference, then asks for a dozen "first picks" to be volunteered from the developers themselves, works on it with the developers for two months to get it all perfected and then RELEASES the tool in a normal nightly build with no announcement at all.
It is now going to be part of the ChromeOS itself, just like all the other daily changes.
The whole thing took only 3 months publically to do with only two "announcements" involved -- instead of taking well over two years for the Cherry Trail/Sophia confused muddled mess which isn't nearly done yet.
Now the announcement to the programmers at the I/O conference was simple, if you use both touch and mouse/trackpad in your Android app then you can run ARC on it to determine if it is fully ARC compatible and once it shows clean on ARC you can go post it in the Chrome depository. ChromeOS will run it just like the ARC tool did.
Think on this for just a second -- a developer can take an old grody Android app, slide it across the ARC tool to fix it up then post it as a Chrome app and as an updated Android app.
He gets an entire new extra market for his product for free with no more effort than he does to upgrade the app to a new Android version.
It is the same App now -- he only maintains the one app from now on for both worlds.
As a matter of fact, the next number version Android Supplier Development Kit will churn out Chrome ready Android apps automatically since ARC will be built right into the Android L version 4.5 SDK.I think Intel had better spend their some of their efforts getting more closely in line with the Chrome/Android world rather than trying to create their own little Android world off by themselves -- especially since their chips might then be able to do tablets and Chromebooks without that nagging software compatibility layer execution delay issue they have now nor the 5-8% "it won't run at all" incompatibility issues that they have now.
AND HEY MS, yup your old buddy Microsoft is just plain in a world of hurt right now -- native language Android is SUPER HUGE in the orient and ChromeOS is getting large here in the USA. Both are very light very fast OS products that now complement each other and add value to each other while both running on the lighter faster hardware that Windows simply can't touch right now. By their own bloated x86 only choices MS has cut themselves off from participating in this new future wave of small light and fast. Hey Intel, you gotta pick which horse you plan to ride boy, you can't keep straddling them both forever. Eventually a foot will slip and dump you on your kister.
If MS would get with the Chrome/Android program, then Microsoft Word running in a Chrome window, Excel running in a Chrome Window, etc. with both being sold for both Android tablets and Chromebooks/Boxes through the Google Play Store would give MS a nice steady future income stream that wouldn't evaporate on them nearly as fast as otherwise. But MS has way way too big of an ego to do that, not for a few years yet.
Plus, to do this trick Windows itself has to slim down considerably ..... and MS has only gotten fatter, never slimmer in its entire company history.
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So, Android and ChromeOS are coming together at last, complementing each other in complete harmony.
We are now looking out for the first Chinese ChromeOS (FOSS non-Google version) machines to crank up in the Far East running Android L version 4.5 SDK developed FOSS Android softwares off-line on FOSS ChromeOS hardware level laptops and desktop boxes.
Light, efficient, fast XP PC replacement type boxes, cheap.
The Chinese yin yang symbol can be the Chinese ChromeOS's trademark symbol ....