Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Android + Linux fusion: tablets diversification

On April 30, 2009, the Android 1.5 update, dubbed Cupcake, was released, based on Linux kernel 2.6.27

From that date, Google made several changes to push Android to its actual state (version 4 Icecream sandwich)

March 18, 2012. After several critics from the open source community about not standard Android fork, it was this day when all came together (see Linux and Android, Together at Last). Linus Torvalds released kernel version 3.3

What can we spect anout this unification?

Well, first of all, I believe maybe in a couple of month it will be possible to see Ubuntu or Mint tablets.

Second, the community will embrace the Google contribution, and will generate improvements that will benifit Google (I think that maybe 20-40 people were hired at Google to mess with Android, but its nothing versus 100, 1,000, 100,000).

Third, one kernel version that will evolve faster.

One of the main possible changes for Android could be the development model, now based on Java. If this changes and open new options, I believe lots of developers will emerge; this point may mean that Google market will grow, or maybe new markets will appear.

Seems that Win 8 will loose this battle if it doesn't appear at once.