Android Notebooks on Their Way

Daniel Hartmann and Matthaus Krzykowski needed 4 hours of work to compile Android for a notebook. They got the notebook fully up and running on it, with almost all of the necessary hardware including graphics, sound and a wireless card for internet.

Android code is very “portable” and neat. Mainy observers, specifically Symbian supporters, have opined that Android would have problems because of its “open source” nature, leading to “chaotic code” and tendency toward desintegration as developers take the OS in different directions.

If true, that could give more controlled OS’s like Symbian, not to mention the iPhone’s, an advantage. Based on the experience with Android, they don’t see that danger mid-term. Quite possibly, Android competitor Symbian does not see that problem either, as the Symbian Foundation also decided to go down an open source path.

After some additional work, the normal webkit browser is working fine on the notebook, and so is the music player. An adoption of the screensize was not and issue as Android does the adaption automatically.

The fact that various OHA partners have already developed Android enough to easily work on a netbook may be considered evidence enough that Google is getting increasing buy-in from industry players to realize this vision. They found two additional indicators that technology is being developed in this direction.

For one, they discovered that Android already has two product “policies” in its code. Product policies are operating system directions aimed at specific uses. The two policies are for 1) phones and 2) mobile internet devices, or MID for short. MID is Intel’s name for ‘mobile internet devices,’ which include devices like the Asus netbook we got Android running on.

The second indicator for a coming Android netbook is that Intel already had the right drivers for MID chips in place.