[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On 26/09/13 09:50, Rob Beard wrote:
I think Android started of as a VM so that the coding could ignore the problems of different GPU's etc - leaving that to the manufacturer. It didn't solve the problem just moved it elsewhere. It provides, essentially, a standard interface for touchscreen devices for the developer to work with. There is no reason why the same standard 'API' cannot be provided for X and you would be in exactly the same situation but development times would be slashed as there would be no need for running up VM's with lossy debugging access. You can easily configure a device to drop into an easy to use interface - (or desktop) where the screen is the only UI and still have access to WIMP (with added touch if you like) - this is all merely mapping input behaviour to trigger events, its not so easy to do the opposite with Android when the input behaviour is not available. I've been looking at music controlling on a tablet device. I could modify the code for a desktop audio mixer to use multitouch on linux in a day or so and have almost all the alsa effects working in a couple of weeks . The same task for Android is about 15 man years of work as everything has to be redone almost from scratch. I cant imagine how many other apps that already exist are being re-written from the ground up where ideally they just need a small mod for multi-touch for small screens.On Wed, 25 Sep 2013 18:58:17 +0100, Tom <madtom1999@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:On 25/09/13 18:53, lug@xxxxxx wrote:On Wed, 25 Sep 2013 18:15:01 +0100, Tom <madtom1999@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:...Android, I hope is a dead branch on the development tree.I read somewhere recently that users are now activating over 1.5millionAndroid devices a day with Google and there are about a billion Android devices total in the wild. So like it or not we are stuck with it ;) KevinThere may be a lot of it about but I can see it being sidelined if people can run full blown linux as well. Theres nothing android can do that linux cant and linux can do a lot more. Tom te tom te tomI'm not entirely convinced that it's going to happen yet, at least not for a few years. The thing with Android, like IOS and even Windows Phone is that it's pretty easy to pick up and use and for most people that's just what they want. Sure Linux is getting much easier but it's not fool proof. As for running Linux on a tablet, what is the state of things like X or Wayland? It seems that a lot of the tablets I've looked at have 3 or 4 different GPUs, are drivers available for all of these? Rob
Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq