[A lot of x86 Devices have Touchscreen, I still think there is no real appel using it on a x86 umpc,slate,tablet,notebook,whatever..
I agree, I would never use android on a desktop, but as a mobile os, tablet, phone and other touchscreen device I prefer it over a mouse and keyboard and gnome / xwindows interface. My main laptop is a asus transformer for example and it's a clamshell touchscreen w/ touchpad... it works good but if it were any bigger I'd probally want a xwindows setup but that's just preference. But I know for absolute certain if it was x86 I wouldn't use it because I couldn't use a large portion of the best software on the appstore. One is preference, the other is a limitation.
Does Android actually need much support ? Android is already supporting additional input devices, and with carefully choosen additional Hardware (Wifi, Bluetooth, additonal Controllers) shouldn't it be relativly easy to bring it to the Pandora ?
it may not be a large commitment to maintain/support, maybe not as much as a standard linux. But the inital port needs to have everything working close to perfectly. So it may not be a huge manpower intensive obligation, especially when a lot of the work is being handed to you. But looking at notaz's modifcations to the rowboat project and cm7 it doesn't look like it tooks months ( well maybe it would for mere mortals )
Im quite unsure about that, I believe most people don't care much, and with Emulators getting better and better and the growing market of additional controllers (ICP2 ?) there isn't really much left to be competitive.
ICP2 is a great idea, but it doesn't beat a singular device that does everything. You could pull any one of pandora's features out and say... well you could do what it does if you took x y and added z...
EDIT: wanted to add an example, take any android smartphone, port angstrom to it or setup a vm and remote desktop with angstrom under android, pair it with a icp2 add 4000mah extended battery = instant pandora... It's not the same because it's having separate devices, it does matter to the people the pandora is targeted at.
but the appeal to me is it's a singular device. It doesn't matter to everyone, and that's the niche I think... One device to rule them all. You see no appeal in combining some people's use cases for owning a smartphone into what's already on the pandora?
Sure the community will support it, but when it comes down to "grunts work" the ranks grow thin. There is the big player notaz, who is currently doing the most work, and "some" other devs that contribute too. But if notaz for whatever reasons decides he does not want to work on the P2s OS, Ed will have a hard time supporting Linux.
we can at least agree on one thing, without notaz the pandora would not be anywhere near where it is today... one might even see it as a common point of failure if he were to lose interest. Linux started as a hobbist OS, supported by hobbists, Commercial support (or any help really) I'm guessing is always welcome, but isn't half of what makes linux so special is software by the community for the community?