Android's Gingerbread finagled onto iPhone Time-rich hackers have got Android 2.3, Gingerbread booting on an iPhone 3G, for the fanboy of divided loyalties who must have the latest of everything. Honeycomb isn't completely functional yet, but being based on the iDroid project it offers dual-boot capability for those who want to keep iOS around for the more mundane …
... WP7 runs on the 1GHz Scorpion/Adreno chip from Qualcomm, as proscribed by Microsoft to ensure good performance. Similar SOC to many smartphones, including the HTC Desire and arguably less powerful than the iPhone4's chip and that of the latest Samsung devices.
And WP7 according to all reviews is fluid and smooth.
Shame for Microsoft and their potential customers (many of whom could be very happy with their WP7 device), this kind of poorly crafted 'humour' and "I think I'm a real geek therefore I must bash Microsoft whether true or not" attitude just spreads misinformation, and sadly most people don't realise that a lot of the time it's FUD.
Get back under your bridge!
I am surprised that people seem to accept these Windows Phone 7 performance claims so readily.
I have not used one and am happy to accept that it is fluid and smooth etc. as you say. But if I'm not mistaken, it is running an OS with the capabilities of the original iPhone (i.e. no app data sharing or multi-tasking) on hardware similar to an iPhone 4. Under these circumstances I would be shocked if it didn't fly.
I'll reserve judgement on whether MS have learned from their mistakes until they release a fully functional Phone OS.
Microshaft are past masters in bullshit, FUD, unfair competition and general underhanded dealings who have not changed their spots, see the recent patent buyout at Novell as a classic example. Yeah "Get the facts" - pah
I'd trust the Sweeney Todd to give me a haircut much more than an MS salesman.
Buying from Jobs at least you get something innovative even if it does cost you your house and first born child.
iPhone 3G runs on a 620 MHz (underclocked to 412 MHz) processor. I have a Windows Phone and it's just as fast as my other half's iPhone 4. I wrote an app for WP7 that progressively chews up memory and processing cycles. Neither was able to slow the phone as the OS shuts the app down when it uses more than 90MB RAM. Don't know what the processor threshold is because the RAM limit was reached first.
I'm going to put my pedant hat on an say that 2.3 is Gingerbread, while 3.0 Honeycomb will [apparently] be for entirely for tablets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPUGNCIozp0
As and Android user, and occasional developer, I actually have to ask why. I couldn't cope with a phone which only has one button (excluding volume, mute & power). Other than that minor shortsight, I have to say I do quite like the hardware.
Well all the ones i've seen have 3 main buttons, so not including volume, camera or power.
That gives you a Home button, a Back button, and a Menu button.
Without them the Android phone is still fully functional, most games and apps will struggle though.
Anyone else notice how laggy Droid 2.3 was in the video?
Is that because it's still in testing?
Probably in the same way us WM6.5 HD2 owners do once we've ported to Android... We use a *sliding soft key representation of physical buttons 'cause we reckon (based on evidence) the hard keys on the H2 aren't going to take the volume of presses Android use encourages.
* Look up "Button Savior" (misspelt) or similar on the Android market.
iOS apps are virtualized so in theory an app could be running on a desktop or a tablet or even a rival phone provided there was a LLVM and APIs there to support it.
I wonder if anyone is developing a compatibility layer for Android. Aside from the amusing apoplexy it would provoke in Apple, it would have a practical benefit. It would hugely useful for app developers who want to port a mass of iPhone code over to Android or other platforms.
They take a £500 phone and put an OS on it that you can run on a £100 phone. Why? Is their end game to allow people to run Android on iphone? Then those people should buy a cheaper Android phone and save themselves a load of money. It's not as if the best apps are Android-only and iphone users need to swtich from iOS to Android.
I really don't think they have an end game, nor are they really doing it for other people.
People like this try to things just to see if they can, and I salute them! They'll be doing it just to explore what is possible, and sharing the results with anyone who is interested.
I've always thought that Hillary could just have gone up to the top of the Malverns - they're the tallest things for miles around and generally nowhere near as troublesome as the Himalayas in terms of snow and breathable air, not to mention the friendlier inclines. The views from there are every bit as good in their own way and if it was good enough for Elgar I don't see why anyone would feel the need to go traipsing off all that way to get a bit of fresh air into their lungs.
Although Apple products hold their value quite well, I doubt you'd end up paying £500 for a device that originally cost £500 and is now two generations out of date.
If you're looking for a cost argument for this hack (which I don't for a second believe that the team responsible considered at all), it's to repurpose a hand-me-down handset.
Actually, it is in repurposing and shoe-horning *nix and such onto initially unsupported hardware that some flaws in the system are found, be they compatibility modules, drivers, API calls, etc. Heck, just running the OS on a setup with some shortcoming may reveal a weakness (lack of function, not security) of the OS. I'm quite sure they have to troll through the original driver code to see what can be copy/pasted for their port as well, which means: code review. Just reading through the code doesn't solve problems; working with it and modifying it solves problems.
There seems to be a certain amount of lag involved with this "update", but I'm sure the guys are working on it.
2.3 looks to be the last of the "great" ROMS, as 3.0 (HoneyComb) looks to be entirely Tablet orientated, although I am sure SOMEONE will try to port it to the relevant devices. But if HoneyComb is entirely tablet orientated, what will happen to Android for the small mobile device???
I expect the gameplan is 2.3 for smart phones to tide them over for 6 months, 3.0 primarily for tablets and then some subsequent 3.x release sees a combined release schedule again. Doesn't mean existing phones will get an upgrade of course since system requirements might be jacked up for the 3.x series.
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