Even as a Linux enthusiast and big Linux promoter for decades, it’s not a mystery that I’ve never been an Android fan. In particular, all the user experience in Android is all but what mom and dad need (they need the iOS UI).
Nevertheless, in the past few months there have been many, many signs that Android/Linux is going to win massively on personal computing devices, and that it means the end of the PC era.
The last two examples are:
– this mini PC running Android 4.0, that contains just what everyone needs at home as a basic PC. And it costs… $68.20!
– the Nikon Coolpix S800c which is loaded with Android so it can make itself all the job to publish and share pictures on the net, for example.
This is the very end of the traditional PC as we have seen it for years! Android/Linux, which is gaining a better user interface over the time, is going to be everywhere, on every device. And the main user PC will now concentrate on the smartphones and tablets that can possibly plug to more confortable terminals (better keyboard, TV or dedicated screen…).
The reason of the Android success? It’s open and free. On the opposite side, Apple’s iOS is *VERY* closed and expensive.
Apple has been making the money because they have revolutionized the smartphone market since 2007 and has kept for a while an advantage of the innovation side. But they are still doing money because of the cinetic energy of the iPhone and iPad on the market. And they are very unlikely to stay as one of the biggest market cap on the planet, because Android is moving fast and incredibly big.
Linus, you can be proud of this accomplishment!
This is true that PC is coming to an end. It should have ended when XP was popular and got saturated with no buyers. Many later versions came out to see failure! Linux on desktops/laptops/web books/ and now hand helds is taking the market by storm for its stable open source platform and wide acceptance. All closed and proprietary products are receding as open source are gaining momentum. Ulteo is gaining more momentum and should soon make professional’s life easier with trouble free “app as a service” hosting, taking a major VDI market soon.
Godspeed
Well… the end of the PC era was told many many months ago and this came from Apple too.
I have an Android phone (rooted and with a custom ROM) and a 7″ tablet (standard ICS from factory), but also an iPhone 4 and iPad 2 (both jailbracked :)). Compared with Apple products the Android devices still have a gap to fill.
Android isn’t yet such an easy and user friendly OS and the Android devices do not match the same built quality as Apple products. Besides, the next iPhone will raise the bar even higher and they offer compatibility for the new iOS versions till last three versions (ie: iOS 5 runs on iPhone 3GS).
The big downside for Android devices is that manufacturers do not offer OS evolution for most of their models, six months after the model launch they drop support 🙁
Android will be a bigger success with better supported devices.