In a brief Facebook update today Bluestacks, the company that makes an Android app ‘player’ for X86-based PCs, has alluded to an Ultrabook-related announcement at CES.
Update: Bluestacks demonstrated on an Ultrabook at CES.
No more information has been given but it wouldn’t be wrong to consider that they might have had a bit of funding from the Intel Capital Ultrabook fund and that they’re preparing an Ultrabook-optimised Android application player (Hypervisor to give it its correct term) for Ultrabooks. Take the thought one stage further and wouldn’t it be interesting if they teamed up with Intel’s AppUp team to support application payment and download in one place. the idea has legs but may take a while to bring to fruition.
Of course this is all my speculation at this stage but doesn’t this announcement make it sound like they’re working hard with Intel?
“Getting some not-yet-released Ultrabooks loaded up for CES in Las Vegas, where we’ll be making an announcement…”
It’s probably worth following them on Facebook for further updates.
It makes sense with Intel’s intent to make inroads towards getting into the mobile market over the next few years and Google hoping to expand or at least making sure they remain relevant no matter which way the market goes in the next few years.
Part of what Intel needs to address is achieving as much energy efficiency as they can muster but desktop OS weren’t intended to be as energy efficient as mobile OS and even the upcoming Windows 8 may not be as efficient as Android.
While Google has to worry about whether Windows 8 changes the market over the next few years. Especially when even most mobile devices no longer need to be limited to the basic mobile OS like they use to and while they have Chrome as an alternative, the market share is still tiny compared to Windows.
So both have an invested interest and for Intel they got pretty much the same reasons many computer makers have been experimenting with secondary basic OS, usually based on linux, to provide basic usage that won’t drain the battery as booting into the main OS would induce is also the reason they would be interested in Android.
Especially with the prevalence of touch interface with mobile devices and Android becoming the preferable choice among many mobile devices already and may soon become increasingly standard in the laptop market as well.
The key difference is for Intel based devices they will also be able to run Windows and legacy software when needed. Though Intel will be releasing many of the mobile range devices with Android first and leave the duality function to their laptop range products for now.
Intel still has to bring in many of their next gen technology out for their lower end ATOM line but that won’t be till 2013 with the 22nm Silvermont. 22nm being the key manufacturing size for them to bring in things like Intel’s Tri-Gate Transistors for example.
Though Intel has already invested in technology for allowing fast switching of a OS that should make the transition between Android and Windows 8 pretty seamless in most cases.
While 2013 is also when Intel brings out Haswell and finally starts bringing all their chips to the more energy efficient SoC designs.
So it’s a mutual beneficial arrangement for Intel and Google to work together for the next few years at least.
What Android apps would people use on a notebook?
The usual assortment of apps for e-mail, communications, socializing, news, etc.
ICS helps a bit by increasing the support for keyboard and mouse usage. Though it’ll take awhile before we see that many apps that can work well in a non-touch based device.
However, it’s likely to mainly serve to help provide basic service when Windows isn’t needed and they are increasing the ability to sync data between Windows and Android apps.
So can help serve as a transition feature to help users get use to it as well as set the way for when Windows 8 comes out and start being pushed for pretty much the entire range of devices. Many of which will likely be dual Android and Windows 8 setups.