Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Android On Ubuntu? It's More Likely Than You Think.

Canonical developers aim to make Android apps run on Ubuntu
One of the neat things about Google's Android smartphone operating system is the fact that deep down inside it's running Linux, an operating system originally created to run full-fledged computers. If nothing else, it's a gee-wiz, Moore's Law, isn't the march of technology cool. But now Slashdot reports that Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu Linux distribution are looking into a way to get Android applications to run on Ubuntu.

This is very cool. While a number of companies are expected to bring out netbooks which run Android, the preliminary results have been underwhelming. Android was originally designed for phones and a lot of work has to be done to get it to run on netbooks. Linux already runs on netbooks, in fact "netbooks" exploded as a category last year because of the EeePC which was originally put out by Asus using a customized version version of Linux. So it just be easier to move Android applications to Linux than it is to move Android onto netbooks.

Think about it, the same applications that run on your (OK, my) T-Mobile G1 phone might also run on a Ubuntu powered computer. If nothing else, it would make exchanging data between phones and computers easier than ever. For fans of mobile computing, it's a win-win.

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