Sure, Intel and Nokia are pushing the MeeGo Linux platform for smartphones as well as netbooks. But nobody said MeeGo is the only mobile OS you’ll be able to run on smartphones with Intel Atom Moorestown chips. Intel says it’s ported Google Android to run on the platform as well.
At the same time that ARM-based chips are starting to show up in smartbooks and other laptop-style devices, Intel is trying to crack the smartphone market. The Moorestown platform is based on a low power x86-based Intel Atom chip. But while Android was originally developed for ARM-based processors, the operating system is open source, making porting it to different platforms a relatively easy process.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen someone build an x86 compatible version of the operating system. But now that Intel is involved, it’s likely that we could actually see handsets with Atom processors and the Android operating system in the future.
Intel says they’re also working on porting other mobile operating systems for Atom phones. Does that mean we could see Windows Mobile, WebOs, or Symbian on Atom phones? Beats me.
via Android Guys
Shy of getting purchased, I don’t think Palm will do this, but WebOS on a more powerful processor, a Cortex A9 would be ideal, but moorestown would be wonderful as well.
My wife bought a Palm Pre when they came out on Sprint, and we both love the OS. It really is a joy to do things on, because the multi-tasking is implemented so well. That said, the hardware is getting a little long in the tooth (In cell phone years, which go by even more quickly than computer years it seems), and yet the company shows no sign of updating anything. They in fact seem paralyzed by their recent failures, which is sad really. They have a very nice OS. I hope that they either do something with it, or someone acquires them and puts it to good use.
I like Android, I’m not sure how well MeeGo will do, and I like the iPhone OS but am increasingly not a fan of Apple itself. But WebOS is the slickest of the bunch from everything I’ve seen, which is amazing if you consider the engineering assets available to Palm, and compare them to everyone else.
However this article isn’t about Palm, or any OS really. It’s more about Moorestown, and what it brings to the table. Unfortunately this is where things get muddy for me. Moorestown is an out of order dual issue chip, which is exactly what the Cortex A8 and the Snapdragon are. They will soon be running at comparable speeds, which is good. I’d love to see what kind of processing performance Moorestown cores bring to the table, because I know they draw more power than the ARM offerings. Throw in the fact that Moorestown comes with a Intel chipset which includes what can best be described as crappy graphics, and the ARM offerings can, and are, combined a la carte with some truly amazing mobile GPU’s, DSPs, Video Incode/Decode, etc, into truly robust System on Chips, and I’m left wondering if the joy I feel at announcements like this is just Intel Fanboy-ism in the face of an unfamiliar part that just seems too configurable to be that powerful, or if Intel really has something special here. Because, if it’s the former, the nVidia Tegra 2 is sexy as hell and there’s no logical reason not to pursue a device with one, if it’s the latter, and Intel can deliver a better experience I kind of want to know before June which is when I have enough room in my personal budget to make some sort of decision.
The sad thing is, that I’ve never seen any sort of head to head comparrison using Linux or something. I know that technically it’s an apples to oranges deal here, but at the same time, the more I learn about the two architectures the more I want to see these two computing architectures go head to head. What Intel has done here is proof that the x86 architecture is nothing magical unless it delivers superior speed. It’s not like I”m going to run windows on my cell phone. This is something I’d love to see.
I’m not sure it’s something that you can do for me Brad, or if someone else has already done it. But with all this lovely cross compatability we should be able to see something sometime before the year is out, which compares the two.
Thanks,
– Mike