Considering selling does that make me bad?

[CAZMIESTER]

What with all the new tech getting released and pandoras reluctance to have android as a secondary os im considering selling,does that make me a disserter ive followed this project from the getgo and seen many amazing apps and seen alot of problems and issues resolved, i would like to say a "HUGE" thanks to Michael and Craig for seeing this project through (most people would have quit)and all the devs and moderators and forum members especially Mcobit,Wermy,Dave18,Crowriot,and many more for making this ride so much easier ,as i said "considering" so why dont we make this post reasons not to one big reason i wouldnt is if the pandora had android as its main or a secondary os as i believe it is the way forward for emulation and handheld gaming as a whole any other reasons please post


PS this is not a titbit for trolls legitamate reasons please.


caz

 

[Prometheus]

If it doesn't suit you, it doesn't suit you. That does not make you or anyone else it doesn't suit a bad person or a deserter. Simple as that.


I'm pretty sure that a number of coders around here have said that they wouldn't want to deal with Android, though. I can't remember the reasons given, that said.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

TT.


Argh. Did you tried to get android up and running ?


It's interesting to know what is missing in the current OP OS(es) ?

 

[renegadechic]

for all that android is a popular OS for capacitative phones and pretty widespread, aren't there quite large restrictions to devices that they allow access to the android marketplace? i was under the impression that even if we could get android on the pandora, we would have a slightly harder time organising access to different apps anyway? also, i am not entirely sure what having android would bring to the table in terms of forwarding emulation and handheld gaming. i guess from an original mobile games POV, marketplace access allowing, would mean a whole set of new commercial games, but regarding emulation, the pandora already pushes as close to the limit of current top handheld emulator quality as is available, and in some cases leading the way for the emulators that end up on the marketplace i.e. mupen64.


to me, getting excited about android is like getting excited about OSX (not iOS) when we already have just as much potential, on ubuntu or something. not saying it wouldn't be a nice to have, and i expect we will get something soon, but i just don't see those benefits you seem to expect! feel free to sell the idea to me!

 

[craigix]

Android is easy to use would be the number one reason for me, then it would be the thousands and thousands of apps and commercial games.


Oh and being a micro-PC which ran Android could only do good things for sales.

 

[mcobit]

I think with Android and all its overhead, you would only get worse performance. Not only ithe os, but also for apps and emulators, that need to be wrapper in this java stuff *ugh*. So there is no real benefit of running android in favour of the quite optimized embedded linux, which is angstrom and does a great job at powering the Pandora.


And no, you are not a bad person


You should just think twice. If you want android apps, be aware, that you won't be able to use some of them without multitouch and such and if all the controls will work etc. Is another question.

 

[renegadechic]

Android is easy to use would be the number one reason for me, then it would be the thousands and thousands of apps and commercial games.

the "easy to use" thing sounds an interesting argument. on one hand i understand that android will take all the responsibility of dealing with the files when you download them and then some voodoo happens and you start using them but i dont feel like i understand anything actually going on under the hood. with a less babysitting OS like we currently have i know where my files are, i know how to download them, i know how to remove them and it has been designed to make it pretty user friendly to make modifications to things like configs. so for me personally, i see a dumbed down OS as ultimately less easy to use properly.


since you are about though, would we have to get any special licencing to use the android marketplace?

 

[craigix]

Not really, you can install it on unapproved devices.


I think we have to move in that direction if we are to become a bigger fish.


Not that we would ever stop you from running normal Linux, or whatever you want.


It's purely, in my view, for ease of use and a bigger user base.

 

[renegadechic]

http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/2853-openpandoraandroid/page__st__40#entry49602


whilst you posted i did find my answer!


i can understand going for it as an option but having to unofficially hack around to get unsanctioned access to apps from the marketplace sounds like plenty of hassle and i think a lot of users would be simply smokescreened into the idea the pandora is using android when actually its using it in a reasonably impractical way with diminished performance due to all those programming layers that mcobit mentioned. i can totally understand how it would draw attention and the potential appeal of customers who want nothing but android, but i kind of get the impression that anyone that obsessed with android is also going to want to be using the very latest versions on the latest smartphones and show off their flashy new device. the kinds of people who slate the pandora for being ugly on engadget, etc.


i kind of see it as being the same reason making your own capacitative screen only handheld/phone wouldn't be the best investment for the icontrolpad scene. you could invest in and spend time making the OPH phone or mini tablet, for use with the icontrolpad, but its always going to be on the back foot compared to using it with the latest smartphones which manage to exist and develop in the larger scale economies and appeal to that much larger userbase.

 

[thatgui]

Android is easy to use would be the number one reason for me, then it would be the thousands and thousands of apps and commercial games.

which comes done to maybe 500-600 really good apps and the rest is crap.

as i believe it is the way forward for emulation and handheld gaming as a whole any other reasons please post

Having the Transformer Prime in my hands, I miss my Pandora a lot - especially emulation wise. Except there is a Android device with dedicated controls you're always in the need for an extra controller and emulators that support them.


For myself I found out that there is a lot of hype around Android/iOS that will perish after some weeks of usage. I don't know anything about you, so your milage may vary here, but beeing used to Systems (x86, Windows+Ubuntu) where you could do more or less anything with it, I find it rather frustrating reaching the narrow limits of the System - like unless you root the device, you can't reach the gutts of it. The hassle you have to go through if you don't want to share everything you do/create/play with some corporate server or simply that you can't plug everything you like in the usb post, or that I need to give my financial data to yet another company because already established payments methods are not supported (of course only if you want to buy something from the market),etc.


Android and iOS have a lot to offer, but the price that has to be paid for it leaves a bad taste behind. It is very likely that this will be the future, a future I don't want to become reality.

 

[CAZMIESTER]

Boy think ive opened a big shitstorm im retiring with my head bowed

 

[renegadechic]

Boy think ive opened a big shitstorm im retiring with my head bowed

nah its just healthy debate! its important to see whats doable and to work out if it is a worthwhile avenue to explore. i think the best solution is to have the pandora and to also have an android phone. you might find an android phone + an icontrolpad is your best option but you wouldn't know the whole scope without discussing it! no dramas necessary

 

[Bosbeetle]

Ive tried android on somebodies phone, I dont get it, you have to swipe everything, things move in weird ways... I think I am getting to old for this shit.


Somehow android only reminds me I dont have facebook...


*starts up scumvm!

 

[elwing]

Ive tried android on somebodies phone, I dont get it, you have to swipe everything, things move in weird ways... I think I am getting to old for this shit.


Somehow android only reminds me I dont have facebook...


*starts up scumvm!

lol, I could have said that

 

[Nintendo]

I happen to Love Android, but I must admit that it's too 'samey' nowadays.

 

[TrashyMG]

Android Fight!!!


Native Linux rules! *ducks*

 

[diligentcircle]

I've never used Android myself. Don't have any interest in tablets or smart phones.


Personally, I'd like to have Android as an option if someone makes it. Hell, it would let me dabble into making Android games. But it should always be secondary to GNU/Linux, in my opinion.


Isn't the big issue performance, though? I seem to remember someone posting that the hardware on the Pandora is just too slow for Android to work effectively.

 

[SNESFAN]

oh how I love these conversations. The people with the skill to do a solid port stand on the "no thank you" side of the fence and the ones on the "yes please" side are mostly non-coder types... spiral conversations every time.


There's pros and cons for each, instead of making some epic post, that would intice a flamewar, I'm just going to list all the +'s -'s & ='s I see over angstrom, I'm trying not to be biased but if you feel I am, feel free to add your own pros and cons to this list


Android vs Angstrom


+easier to customize (menu/app driven settings & core feature replacements)


+software selection (same quality of games and in some cases just different ports of the same apps as pandora)


+comercial applications


+multiple emulators for most systems already exist except some obscure systems and will work with any armv7 processor (made with android NDK)


+multiple mature software distribution points and paying for apps and billing, non centralized (google play, amazon, slideme, handango, getjar, etc)


+better powersaving and suspend support (android phone with 4000 mah battery can last several weeks in instant-on standby)


+larger support community and pool of app developers and kernel & OS developers


+more user friendly multi-platform SDK with built in emulator and debugging bridge for device


+apps ported to android will survive an OS or hardware upgrade with the orginal coder doing nothing. (thanks to dalvik vm)


+entire OS and core apps and processes are designed with mobile computing in mind (less loops, and optimized to use as little cpu time as possible to save battery)


+easily debug os and apps issues with adb (android debugging bridge) over usb and access terminal shell


=subjectively better touch centric interface


=most(not all) apps allow you to customize hardware button mapping in-app, for those that don't 3rd party apps can be used to fix hardmaping buttons


=hardware to touchscreen interfacing app can be used for games that don't support hardware controls


=if you don't like the default interface, make a new one, tweak the framework on the existing, or use one of the many home screen replacements


=Your settings and apps are backed up to "the cloud" and are automatically restored after a os wipe/upgrade


=lightweight OS package ~200MB or less is most cases


=FOSS OS and core elements (minus google specific apps, gmail, market etc)


=installed apps can be installed on SD card instead of NAND


-app specific settings are stored on a "user data" partition on nand instead of SD (can be fixed/linked to SD)


-cache partition is stored on NAND instead of SD (can be fixed/linked to SD)


-uses a java based virtual machine to run processes(can also write apps in C or C++ with android NDK http://developer.and.../ndk/index.html)


-not 100% vanilla linux kernel (will merge with mainline linux in the future 3.2+?)


-current angstrom apps would need re-ported (or dual boot OS)


-can't use standard app repository (OPKG, APT-GET etc)


-can't currently (to my knowledge) develop apps natively inside the OS without an external connection and SDK


agian my knowledge of vanillia linux is not as good as most so feel free to add to this list.

 

[CAZMIESTER]

I think with Android and all its overhead, you would only get worse performance. Not only ithe os, but also for apps and emulators, that need to be wrapper in this java stuff *ugh*. So there is no real benefit of running android in favour of the quite optimized embedded linux, which is angstrom and does a great job at powering the Pandora.


And no, you are not a bad person


You should just think twice. If you want android apps, be aware, that you won't be able to use some of them without multitouch and such and if all the controls will work etc. Is another question.

maybe we need a touch to joy app like joytokey or xpadder and that would open up alot of ready to use software for the pandora.hate these touch joypads and buttons on my hp touchpad

 

[SNESFAN]

maybe we need a touch to joy app like joytokey or xpadder and that would open up alot of ready to use software for the pandora.hate these touch joypads and buttons on my hp touchpad

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.locnet.gamekeyboard


it works