Pandora Should Move To Android

[palstyo]

I think good idea for just alternative OS option.
But not for gaming good for browsing internet and use other apps.
Actually I have many android device laos include phone and mid , also I have a odroid as well.
I'm not using android as a gaming console or emulator devices.
Also pandora don't have 3G censor so not suitable for android gaming environment I think.
600MHz cortex-A8 is seems minmum environment to run android 2.1/2.2 so I feel no future.

Actually this hardware specification is already out of date, probably not powerful than latest chinese mid devices.
But Pandora is still my dearm machine for me so please don't go wrong way.
I like this concept that's why I paid advanced and still wait til now from Oct 2008.
If going to android this is not my dream machine anymore.
Hopefully never be like that.

 

[VRAndy]

You kind of lose control of your system and just have to use "APK package installers" that will just do things on their own and don't let you really set things up how you like. This will kind of take things away from the community and leave things up to Google to say how you can and can't use your system. Forced OS upgrades etc is just not too appealing. The community can't really tailor the OS to the unit or how we use it. We hand over control of the Pandora and it's features etc to Google. To me that is just cringeworthy and is against who the Pandora was designed for and by.

Exactly, I have to assume that anyone who imagined Pandora as a "pocket Linux computer" is going to shy away from Android. Not because it's not also a Linux, but because it's not designed to be used as a computer.

It feels ridiculous to intentionally split such a tiny user-base. If this is done, it's almost guaranteed that team Pandora and at least some community developers will put less time into the .PND files and the desktop Linux functionality in favor of this new thing. Not only does this mean people become part of a different community than they were expecting when they pre-ordered a million years ago, but it also would make people wonder about OP's attention span. If this happened, even android fans in batch 2 or 3 would think "Gee, I wonder what new OS will be recommend for Pandora instead of Android by the time I get mine?"

If I wanted to be trendy and jump on the latest thing as soon as it came out, I'd have just bought a phone.

 

[Esn]

I agree with what VRAndy just said.

What has been keeping this whole enterprise running past the point when any other company would have folded long ago is trust. That is the only reason that Murphy's Law has not killed this thing.

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

There's some pretty obvious appeal here. And some pretty obvious risks. Don't do anything to Pandora 1 that would threaten existing software compatibility in any way, that'd be a major middle finger to the people who have done stuff for it so far. It'd already be a pretty big screw you to the people who worked so hard on the distro.

Here's what I think, in the standard Exophase grating bullet point form:

- I heard before that you only get access to the Android store if you're running an officially sanctioned (by Google) Android platform. Maybe someone can clear this up for me. What's the story on Odroid for instance?
- I don't think you need a phone or a GPS to do this, but not having motion controls is going to crippled game compatibility.
- The limitations have to be very upfront... like ED said, stuff like ssh and terminals on the device are a must.
- Any performance implications have to be carefully examined, the big ones are going to be things that affect latency, periodic CPU bursts, sound system, and most importantly whether or not you have close to zero overhead screen writes (one way or another). I don't know how Android really is under the hood, but there's no point flying off the handle assuming it sucks. There's way more incentive to make it as efficient as possible than there is for the vanilla Linux distro we're using... this is being positioned by several huge companies, against iPhone no less. And don't judge it by whatever emulator ports are currently on it.. I doubt they've received the same level of attention that even Pandora's thus far have, much less what they will.
- Selling it as a dual boot platform is going to be messy. At the very least Android has to be the primary option for it to really push the platform. And for the current NAND system it just isn't going to work, you can't very well fit both... we're talking about way more than just changing a GUI here.
- But to all the "let's stay with Linux" crowd, Android is still Linux.
- Let's face it, current distro has bugs and while I'm sure things will get better in time it's at a serious competitive disadvantage with Android.

What I think is that this shouldn't be done on Pandora 1, but on Pandora 2 it might be very compelling because I'm willing to bet that some big phones are going to launch Android on OMAP4 in 2011 (next Droid perhaps?)... and anything that can help get software up faster on it for Pandora is going to be a big plus. For ease of integration just look at Odroid.. if they can do it OP probably easily can too (although Samsung's SoCs are pushed as really Android friendly). That, and I don't think Pandora 2 should end up being behind the phones by a year; look at how much backlash Pandora got for being even about half a year. Just give Pandora 2 an accelerometer too.

DaveC; I appreciate your decision to bail if this ends up sucking but for god's sake, stop assuming so much and jumping to conclusions on everything. At least wait to see how a test run of it performs.

Good points
I just didn't understand why make pandora 1 a linux device when you already predict a pandora 2 and understand its future meeting Android along the run.

Android:

• tons of little apps are there to make the user experience richer
• more time-resistant: doesn't depend on people having to improve angstrom linux
• much more user-friendly. Android is there not only for the "google brand": there are reasons for the regular user to avoid linux. I completely understand them.

1st test if you can have good performance on very demanding things like the n64 emulator (even if it has to shut down all of the android things and get into a "minimal-mode").
If so, Android it will be.

But I think no one will care if we stick to Angstrom, since all development around it seems to be going pretty good.
My only concern is people spending time and horsepower to help fix an OS instead of working on more interesting things.

Congratulations for bringing up the subject, not playing lazy and sticking to what's done. That's the spirit of the OPT I love.

 

[DaveC]

I agree with what VRAndy just said.

What has been keeping this whole enterprise running past the point when any other company would have folded long ago is trust. That is the only reason that Murphy's Law has not killed this thing.

We all know Murphy tried, with erupting volcanos and such.

I still cringe thinking how we will be at the mercy of the whims of a megacorporation like Google for the Pandora. Y.U.C.K.

That will kind of kill it for me. Being forced to install how they want you to, where they want you to. DRM and all of that too. I don't even know how that will work as they like installing to internal non-removeable memory in the phones. IF apps are installed on the SD will they be encrypted and have to be digitally signed or something?

 

[Eniko]

@Eniko, Python and Pygame will still work fine; you just run your code via Jython (Jython has had some problems with code generation on Dalvik that have been fixed now I think)
Ogre3D... probably not usable on Android. But I'll have to do some research, because they have had a Java port of Ogre for ages, and if you were to use Jython instead of Cython, you could use the Java version of Ogre3D with little/no performance loss.

Unless I missed a memo, Pygame will not work with Jython, Jython is a Python interpreter sure but that only means it can run pure Python code with completely pure Python libraries and let's face it, that's not the majority of Python software. And you cannot simply swap out Cython and used Jython either, because I'll be using Cython to compile my code in a way where it can't be easily decompiled (like Jython) and also for speed increases. Also to interface with Ogre3D, but since that probably won't work either I guess that's not so much a problem as an impossibility.

So why am I supposed to be excited and on board with this? I am not. And that's not even getting into the fact that going from there I can think of slews of stuff that wouldn't work on Android.

I bought into the Pandora because it would be an ARM based UMPC, and it would be open source and wouldn't have all these limiting factors other devices do. And then what, switch to Android and impose a bunch of limitations all over again? No. Why on earth would that be a good idea? Maybe as an option it'd be an asset, but it should definitely not be the primary focus. Not at all.

And even as an option it would make me wonder, for the reasons VRAndy stated.

 

[DaveC]

Couldn't this community give the big FUCK YOU to android if we don't like it and just keep and dev for what we have now though?

It is not like Craig will come to our houses and make sure the dumbed down android is installed. When we get the android installed Pandora could't we just wipe it and put angstrom and minimenu etc on it like we have now? Devs here have been making the OS themselves anyway like DJWillis Notaz etc. After all PSP and DS homebrewers hack their native OSs to run homebrew so we could too right? Even a community OS was made for the GP2X (Open2X) We wouldn't have to succumb to mainstream OS any more than PSP users do, if we want the OPEN Pandora to remain open we still could I would think.

 

[marshal]

Android as a second official or semi-official platform will be great.　I think it will definitely help with people that find the product interesting but are a bit scared of the whole Linux thing.

 

[dflemstr]

Unless I missed a memo, Pygame will not work with Jython, Jython is a Python interpreter sure but that only means it can run pure Python code with completely pure Python libraries and let's face it, that's not the majority of Python software. And you cannot simply swap out Cython and used Jython either, because I'll be using Cython to compile my code in a way where it can't be easily decompiled (like Jython) and also for speed increases. Also to interface with Ogre3D, but since that probably won't work either I guess that's not so much a problem as an impossibility.

Oh, OK, I underestimated your needs. It seems that you require pygame explicitly, and wouldn't want to adapt your renderer to use native drawing APIs (which are very similar to the pygame ones). Yes I realize that pygame provides a lot of convenience and you probably want to stick to that for that reason. I also had the impression that there was a pygame implementation on top of Jython, but I'm not a Python programmer so I clearly haven't done my research.

Also there's ProGuard for code obfuscation if that's what you're looking for. Oh and code produced by Cython is as "decompilable" as Jython-generated code is; C-code adapted for Python isn't the same thing as normal C-code.

So why am I supposed to be excited and on board with this? I am not. And that's not even getting into the fact that going from there I can think of slews of stuff that wouldn't work on Android.

I bought into the Pandora because it would be an ARM based UMPC, and it would be open source and wouldn't have all these limiting factors other devices do. And then what, switch to Android and impose a bunch of limitations all over again? No. Why on earth would that be a good idea? Maybe as an option it'd be an asset, but it should definitely not be the primary focus. Not at all.

And even as an option it would make me wonder, for the reasons VRAndy stated.

Well we're just making some case studies here. I can also think of a slew of reasons why not to use Android as the primary OS, but I can think of an equal amount of reasons why not to use Ångström. I just think that you should put all the cards on the table before drawing any conclusions.

 

[Prometheus]

much more user-friendly. Android is there not only for the "google brand": there are reasons for the regular user to avoid linux. I completely understand them.

But doesn't the regular user have to hack a bunch of things in Android in order to use the marketplace service if the device doesn't have Google's blessing? I certainly don't have to do that on Linux.

Or am I mistaken? I'm having a great deal of trouble finding the thread where I first saw this mentioned (it was quite a long time ago)...

 

[Natasha]

I'm joining in the no-way-I-let-Android-run-on-my-Pandora crowd. I was planning to try help port FreeBSD (or should that fail, another BSD) as a side activity soon after getting my unit, however should Android be the only choice I'd rather have a brick until I can get a BSD working on it.

Now I don't have anything against a multi-boot Android option along with a real OS, or an Android compatibility layer on top of the real Linux, or whatever optional androidity that doesn't prevent coding for a real architecture and using efficient native applications.

 

[VRAndy]

Android as a second official or semi-official platform will be great.　I think it will definitely help with people that find the product interesting but are a bit scared of the whole Linux thing.

Yea, That'll help Craig find new customers so he can get rid of all those Pandoras sitting in the Pandora warehouse.

Seriously, what's the motivation here? Is there a worry that the pool of potential Pandora customers is going to dry up?

If so, is there a large pool of Android users that want a device without tilt, without g3, without gps, and using an resistive touchscreen?

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

Couldn't this community give the big FUCK YOU to android if we don't like it and just keep and dev for what we have now though?

It is not like Craig will come to our houses and make sure the dumbed down android is installed.

So that's how you act when opinions differ?
Seems like time didn't change you at all.
Be less over-reactive.

much more user-friendly. Android is there not only for the "google brand": there are reasons for the regular user to avoid linux. I completely understand them.

But doesn't the regular user have to hack a bunch of things in Android in order to use the marketplace service if the device doesn't have Google's blessing? I certainly don't have to do that on Linux.

Or am I mistaken? I'm having a great deal of trouble finding the thread where I first saw this mentioned (it was quite a long time ago)...

I've only messed with my brother's android motorola phone, I don't know what one has to do if the device doesn't have google's blessing...
what would stop the pandora from having it?

 

[Prometheus]

What I gather (and I'm very sorry, but I'm having real trouble locating a link for this), is that Google's blessing may require certain things to be in the device which the Pandora doesn't have.

There's also an interesting side-issue that I feel warrants mentioning, though again please correct me if I'm mistaken. It seems that Android doesn't support EAP at this time. At least with Linux, when a user has a WiFi problem we can make suggestions to assist with troubleshooting. With this, if it is accurate, there would be cases where we would have to say "I'm sorry, but you cannot connect your Pandora to your wireless network at all until Android supports this.".

 

[Exophase]

what would stop the pandora from having it?

Not paying them, I imagine. Google has to make money on this somehow.. although there is app revenue, plus their own phones.

 

[dflemstr]

much more user-friendly. Android is there not only for the "google brand": there are reasons for the regular user to avoid linux. I completely understand them.

But doesn't the regular user have to hack a bunch of things in Android in order to use the marketplace service if the device doesn't have Google's blessing? I certainly don't have to do that on Linux.

Or am I mistaken? I'm having a great deal of trouble finding the thread where I first saw this mentioned (it was quite a long time ago)...

I've only messed with my brother's android motorola phone, I don't know what one has to do if the device doesn't have google's blessing...
what would stop the pandora from having it?

Well, afaik you will always have access to the Google store, but you won't have access to commercial applications unless you can prove to Google that your setup has some kind of DRM capabilities. That's what would make most sense to me anyways. But I'm not sure, because I can't find the Google store in the Android emulator, and the Android emulator contains all of the default shipping apps in the Android bare OS.

Oh and guys don't forget that Android still runs on Linux. It's not a completely new OS we're talking about.

 

[second exodous]

I don't know, you would get more games if you switch to Android, but I'd give it a year and see how PND works out and your game store.

Consider this: If you switch to Android do you think people will buy through your store or through someone else's? I think in the long run you would be better off advertising the Pandora store to Android developers, it would be easy for them to port their wares to Pandora and they'll sell through your store.

I say give what you have got a chance; a while after you get the 4,000 out see how things go and if it isn't going well switch to Android.

what would stop the pandora from having it?

Not paying them, I imagine. Google has to make money on this somehow.. although there is app revenue, plus their own phones.

Google is a search company, they don't make money on anything else. Microsoft is an OS company, they don't make money one anything else. These two companies make so much on what they focus on they don't need to make money on anything else.

Google IS NOT making money on Android, it's an experiment like XBOX.

 

[DaveC]

I'm joining in the no-way-I-let-Android-run-on-my-Pandora crowd. I was planning to try help port FreeBSD (or should that fail, another BSD) as a side activity soon after getting my unit, however should Android be the only choice I'd rather have a brick until I can get a BSD working on it.

Now I don't have anything against a multi-boot Android option along with a real OS, or an Android compatibility layer on top of the real Linux, or whatever optional androidity that doesn't prevent coding for a real architecture and using efficient native applications.

That was what I was wondering kind of before. If/when Craig decides to go to android does that mean the community has to? Couldn't we continue on here as is and let him sell those to whoever he is thinking wants android Pandoras?

I am assuming the hardware is the same so nothing would prevent it.

Well, afaik you will always have access to the Google store, but you won't have access to commercial applications unless you can prove to Google that your setup has some kind of DRM capabilities. But I'm not sure, because I can't find the Google store in the Android emulator,

Oh and guys don't forget that Android still runs on Linux. It's not a completely new OS we're talking about.

A completely wild guess but maybe the reason you can't see the store through the emulator is because they don't want to to download that way for security reasons. Maybe that would make apps easy to crack. They just don't care as much about all of the basic apps that ship with the devices.

There would have to be DRM. Otherwise you could just download android games and spread them around to anyone. Does this mean the Pandora will need to be locked down like a PSP? Probably not I guess but it will certainly have to limit the ways we can use the Pandora. There would have to be some restrictions I would imagine. Maybe that is why dual boot will not be possible anmore? DRM on the Pandora, do we really want that?

Yes it is still linux but with layers and layers of bloat on top.

Consider this: If you switch to Android do you think people will buy through your store or through someone else's? I think in the long run you would be better off advertising the Pandora store to Android developers, it would be easy for them to port their wares to Pandora and they'll sell through your store.

If you run android I would imagine there would not be a Pandora store except for homebrew. I am pretty sure you would then have to go through google to do everything related to commercial games.

 

[VRAndy]

So why am I supposed to be excited and on board with this? I am not. And that's not even getting into the fact that going from there I can think of slews of stuff that wouldn't work on Android.

Haha, you're not excited about developing a game for a platform and then learning that the platform is considering shifting to a new operating system that won't run your game? Don't worry! A handfull of us will stick around and play it.

It is not like Craig will come to our houses and make sure the dumbed down android is installed.

That's what you think.

I am assuming the hardware is the same so nothing would prevent it.

Of course but there's a diference between buying the "worlds' first native Linux handheld", and buying an "android handheld that Linux used to be supported on, but only a few people still do that so they don't really keep it up to date".

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

if you can have android running well (you can use the android software library, you can use all the pandora hardware, have good performance on n64 emulator), it should be the default OS, leaving people the option to flash angstrom (and also keep a boot-from-SD).
if android has all these problems and the transition is not as good as one can wonder, the OPT shouldn't work over it (while other people would be able to give it a try).
I hope the 1st option works, it would be a great thing for current and future pandoras