Google reportedly operating on bringing Android to the Raspberry Pi 3

whilst the authentic Raspberry Pi launched, it was billed as a tiny low-price laptop useful to tinkerers, enthusiasts, and as a manner to train children the fundamentals of coding. during the last 4 years, the platform has evolved and advanced — the modern version of the Raspberry Pi (the Raspberry Pi 3) is a quad-center Cortex-A53 CPU at 1.2GHz with a VideoCore IV GPU clocked at 300-400MHz (3-d clocked at 300MHz, video at 400MHz), 1GB of RAM, 802.11n wireless, and a rated power consumption of 4W. That’s not far off the specifications of mid-to-low-give up Android smartphones these days, and Google which hasn’t officially supported the RBP 3 with an working gadget, appears to have taken notice. multiple reports are suggesting that the organization intends to formally guide Raspberry Pi with its own version of the Android running gadget.

The evidence of the potential for such guide is an empty folder within the Google repository for its AOSP (Android Open source mission). There are some of gadgets and branches indexed within the master listing for AOSP, and a lot of them aren’t empty. together with the RBP three in this list might seem to signify that Google intends to assist the tool with future code updates and an Android version. presently, the RBP 3 is supported by way of certain Linux distros or even a windows IoT variation, however bringing Android help to the diminutive pc might open up a international of alternatives for the tool.

The best aspect about seeing a cutting-edge OS come to the Raspberry Pi will be the options it'd open for constructing proper structures across the hardware. with out proceeding any disrespect to Linux or home windows 10 IoT, those operating systems don’t have the depth or breadth of applications as Android does. as the RBP hardware maintains to enhance, it’ll possibly near the gap among itself and modern-day smartphones or capsules by means of an additional margin — the contemporary 1.2GHz quad-center Cortex-A57 layout is a solid target, but it shouldn’t be tough for the Raspberry Pi basis to iterate on this base with higher clock velocity targets for future designs. The Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi 2 have been both constructed on 40nm technique era; it’s no longer clean if the Broadcom BCM2837 on the heart of the RBP 3 is based totally on 28nm tech or not. If it isn’t, then there’s truely room to push the hardware similarly in future iterations of the platform while maintaining strength intake regular.

If Google is serious approximately helping the RBP 3 with Android — and absent an legit affirmation, this is nevertheless an if — it’ll open the hardware up to new initiatives and skills, with out detracting at all from its original task to function an cheaper advent to computing and laptop programming. at the same time as the enterprise hasn’t introduced whatever yet, hopefully the surge of standard hobby will spark an legit declaration.