So I am trying to learn some about how android works. I am interested in how it works with the hardware. I am not a developer or interested in porting android to another device, but as I look at the hardware specs of say the Touch Pro2 and the hero, they are similar and the chipsets are close (same family). Recently i read that the CEO of HTC said he will not make a Android version of the TP2, so my question is this:
What is special about the hardware of the android device that it runs android, but the TP2 cannot? I know that people have been working on porting Android to other WinMo devices, but with limited success. So what is the stumbling block?
I'm just curious about this topic and was hoping some of the smart folks from XDA would know.
I believe that much like computer hardware, each component requires drivers, and those need to be written for WinMo devices. In the alpine section they've been port WinMo 5, but couldn't due to lack of drivers.
Also all WinMo devices are resistive, Android (up until 1.6) was all capacitive, which I believe is another issue.
Anyway, the Droid is better than the TP2 =P
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WE all have come across android as 1 of the most impressive OS in mobile tech..
wel.. as the htc dream has turned out to be bit of dissapointment.......
i wish to know that what could be the ideal phone in the current scenario that supports anderoid the best..
or what could be the yet to to launched phones one should eye upon..
any suggestions??
Android "Dream" G1. It's the only phone that *officially* supports Android at the moment, and the only one it works properly with.
Any other phone that currently *could* run Android has to be hacked to work properly, hence the threads for Diamond, Touch Pro, X1 (mostly HTC devices that have similar hardware) where people are actively working on getting Android working on various devices.
SE have said that they will be developing an Android phone, more than likely the "X2", I don't know of any others that will support Android yet.
I’d like to know if you’ll be able to upgrade your present phone from 6.1 to 6.5 and then later 7? I’ve just bought my Touch Diamond and will be using it for atleast 2 years, would be a shame if I couldnt upgrade the OS when it comes out…
Kind of like asking how long is a piece of string??? Considering no one really knows what hardware specification will be required to run either WinMo 6.5 or WinMo 7... IMHO I would say that WinMo 6.5 highly possible (Tread in Diamond ROM section with an apparently leaked version, although not for the Touch Diamond) , WinMo 7 only Micro$oft will be able to answer that one???
windows mobile is made for a specific phone... drivers, enhancements, everything. if they decide to provide us with an upgrade, we get an upgrade. if a device VERY similar to ours has it, we *might* be able to use it too. beyond that, you can't go to the store and buy it, so we're really at the mercy of everybody else involved.
According to some of the teaser details already released about Windows Mobile 7, it will likely require a capacitive screen, and the G1 is the only phone by HTC to use one so far.
We don't really know much about WM7 though. That teaser info that was released quite a while ago hinted at possible gesture recognition, multitouch, etc., but I think that release was as much marketing ploy as anything else.
I doubt that WM7 will require a capacitive screen, although I would expect that it will support them. There are a number of reasons not to ditch resistive screens. Fine detail can't be input on a capacitive screen, which causes numerous problems. Complex alphabets (Asian), legacy support for existing applications, cost... the list goes on, but requiring capacitive screens would essentially erase the entire foundation that WM is built on. I don't think MS wants to do that. The great thing about WM (and MS vs Apple in general) is that they don't tie you to one piece of hardware. You have much greater flexibility in terms of cost, features, form-factor, etc.
I was hoping for WM7 this year, but now that most announcements put WM6.5 devices at Q3-Q4, it seems highly doubtful we'll see a WM7 device until at least mid 2010. By that time I'll be ready for a new device anyway (Tegra, new Qualcomm/AMD chipset, who knows), so the issue is almost moot. I'm with you though, I'd still like to see WM7 on the Diamond/Pro/HD!
Given that symbian has just gone open source, does anyone have any interest in working to port it over to the rhodium? Given the nature of the hardware, it should be doable, but the question is, is there any interest?
I know android is the new "thing", but symbian is still the most popular smartphone OS, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who moved over the WinMo from symbian for radio reasons -- I can get a T-Mo 3G WM phone, but not a symbian device.
Offcourse, the fact that it has gone opensource will make it easier, but I'm fairly sure it will be very hard to get symbian on any HTC.
Nokia uses very different hardware, so the cpu/chipset drivers won't exist at all. And as far as I know, symbian is not based on linux, so any linux drivers will be useless.
Android on rhodium is doable, because of the fact that it shares most of it's hardware specs with it's native android brothers.
Maemo on the other hand, is basicly linux with a skin/gui on top of it. We already have a booting linux kernel, so maemo will probably be a possible O/S to port in the future.
There's another thread on this at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=628384
Thread closed as existing thread exists as per above post
I realize that in an Android-centric forum branch, I risk cries of heresy, but looking at the specs for upcoming Windows Phone 7 phones, I'm wondering if it will be possible to port Windows Mobile 7 to the Nexus One.
Not knowing enough about ROM cooking, I am wondering if any devs have opinions on the feasibility of this.
I am NOT interested in opinions about Windows Mobile 7 by itself, or as compared to any other platform, Android or otherwise, so please don't bother posting "b-b-but WinMo sucks", etc.
Thanks in advance!
maxawesome said:
I realize that in an Android-centric forum branch, I risk cries of heresy, but looking at the specs for upcoming Windows Phone 7 phones, I'm wondering if it will be possible to port Windows Mobile 7 to the Nexus One.
Not knowing enough about ROM cooking, I am wondering if any devs have opinions on the feasibility of this.
I am NOT interested in opinions about Windows Mobile 7 by itself, or as compared to any other platform, Android or otherwise, so please don't bother posting "b-b-but WinMo sucks", etc.
Thanks in advance!
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Almost impossible since WP7 isn't open source.
(And it's not finished yet anyway.)
Also, Windows Mobile 7 =/= Windows Phone 7
My understanding is that Windows Phone 7 is to the WinMo platform what Centrino is to Intel-based notebooks, i.e. a set of required hardware to guarantee a certain experience.
Windows Mobile 7 (as in the OS itself) has been ported to the HTC HD2, right?
I just wondered if the same might not be possible now that the WinMo 7 SDK is out (not in final form, I know, but still...)??
winmo 7 won't run on hd2
timothydonohue said:
winmo 7 won't run on hd2
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Click to collapse
Ok, in that case, what about dual-booting an Android phone to run WinMo 6.5?
I've seen articles on some bootloader that will let you dual boot WinMo 6.5 and Android from a WinMo phone. Is it possible to do the same on an Android handset?
maxawesome said:
Ok, in that case, what about dual-booting an Android phone to run WinMo 6.5?
I've seen articles on some bootloader that will let you dual boot WinMo 6.5 and Android from a WinMo phone. Is it possible to do the same on an Android handset?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a hell of a lot easier to port Android to a WinMo phone due to the fact that it's open source (hell, it's even been ported to iphone).
Getting any version of WinMo ported to Android would probably be possible, but incredibly difficult.
Ah, good point I hadn't thought of. I guess I just figured that even though WinMo isn't open source, enough of the hardware is common between devices these days so that drivers baked into WinMo would just work. Showing my novice, obviously.
I own a Samsung Galaxy SII T-989 and, because I come from the "Windows" side rather than Linux or Apple, I would like to be able to completely wipe out the Gingerbred ROM that came with the phone and install a "cooked" ROM based on Windows Mobile 7 or, at least Windows Mobile 6.5.
I am hoping that, all those great developers connected to this site and spending so much time on cooking roms and rooting android phones, maybe one day they would look into this project that will become, I am sure, the greatest challenge, the pinnacle of all great things ever accomplished and recorded on this amazing forum.
I'm sure that nobody will bother:
1) It's going to prove VERY complicated, to say the least. Without "inside job" with the drivers, just plain impossible.
2) It's useless. If you're after Windows Phone 7 phones - just go and buy yourself one. Installing Android on it will be much easier than the other way around, and most probably it was already done.
Because of both of the points, it won't happen. There are reasonable challenges, and there are oh-so-stupid ones. And people mostly have lives. So if I were you, I wouldn't hold on to the hope, and would just go out and buy WinPhone 7.
Specifically for point 1: Microsoft certifies all the HW that is licensed to work with their OS, and all the drivers are made ONLY for this HW, and not for anything else. VERY CPU- and board-specific. Seeing that you have a Samsung phone, which doesn't have this HW or anything like it, I'd say that the chances of hell freezing over are higher than your phone getting Win7 port. Well, at least until your specific CPU (which happens, unlike most other SGS2 ones, to be of the "right" brand for Win7 phones) and phone motherboard (which might never become a base for Win7 phone) gets certified and has drivers done for it - happens only if exactly the same base will be used for Win7 phone - and Microsoft outsourcing them. I'd bet my money on hell freezing over
Hey.
I noticed, that the Omnia 7's and the SGS's specs are just the same, and I wonder if it could be possible to port WP7 to SGS. What do you think? I'm not a programmer, so I can't do anything for it, just aksing.
Android = Open source, developper friendy os
Widnows = Closed source, licensed used.
altouch might be doable, since phone with WM6 got 6.5 (HTC Vogue or the likes), I assume if all the drivers are available it would be.
BTW: Question already asked and answered many time, you can always use the "search" fonction
A custom bootloader to start up WP7 would need to be created. You can start Android on Windows Mobile hardware because of Haret.
It also looks like Microsoft standardized the 1GHz Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon chips for all WP7 hardware at the moment (yes, even Samsung's devices, you'd think they'd want to use their own Hummingbird) in order to reduce fragmentation. The S5PC110 in our Galaxy S's uses completely different hardware drivers and compiling them to be compatible with WP7 would probably be quite an effort or impossible.
If at at all possible development would begin on QSD8250 handsets like the HTC Nexus One or Desire. Maybe we'll see more developments as WP7 begins trickling out but I have my doubts.