another android preference poll (anonymous)

Do you want Android as an option in addition to a Linux distrobution on the Pandora successor?

  • yes

    Votes: 21 35.0%
  • no

    Votes: 12 20.0%
  • don't care either way

    Votes: 27 45.0%

  • Total voters
    60

The audio quality, not an essential feature? I'm not so sure about that. It justifies the price of the hardware almost by itself.
Your milage may vary, that is the point. It's not (or at least ideally should not be) about personal preferences. The audio quality may be a big factor for a portion of the Pandora users, but I see no evidence that it had significant impact on sales figures (and will in the future, P1 or P2) - it's just there because nobody opposed MWeston back then.If someone comes up with good arguments that the official support of Android would boost sales figures in a scale that it would justify the extra costs, I'll be among the first that shouts "we need Android officially supported", altough I have no interest in Android on the P2 myself. But currently is see no reason why it should raise sales in a measurable magnitude.
 
Android can be ported by anybody with enough time/motivation/knowledge since it's software, you're talking about hardware…

Apples and oranges.
In that particular case I have to disagree. It's not about hardware vs. software - it's basically about the question wether a "feature" (may it be implemented in software or hardware) is "worth" the investment.
 
I doubt there is a way to prove it. And don't know if official sales figures exist but there was a laptop a while back that had a dual boot windows and android. It was x86 android so it was severely gimped but it might be interesting to see how their sales stacked against similar priced, similar spec and brand laptops. Dual booting devices are pretty rare, and even less dual boot a fully functional android.
 
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I doubt there is a way to prove it.
Maybe that was not phrased right. I don't seek the final prove, just arguments that make me believe that Android will help in sales enough that it justifies the resource that have to be spent on.With more and more special Android Gameing devices (nVidia Shield, Archos something, JXD, etc, etc) and "gameing addons for phones" flodding the market I just don't see the potential - especially as the P2, when it hits the market, probably won't have cutting edge processing power, so other than the keyboard there is nothing else the Pandora could shine with.
 
The entire "I don't want it so I don't want to pay for it" argument is a dead end. All it leads to is "I want this so everyone must pay for it because there's already stuff I don't want and still pay for". It's a dead end both ways (both for and against android or anything else) and utterly non-constructive. Bickering.

There's only one person who can definitively say if Android will be an "officially supported" OS option, same as with any hardware decisions. We can voice pros and cons here, but we can't really bargain with features since we (most of the community) are not making the decisions. So any "if this won't be in then that won't be in either!" or "if you get that then I must get this!" is a moot point.

The most constructive arguments here either show support for a feature with positive comments or raise justified concerns. Supporting one thing by speaking ill of other things is not constructive. I know I sometimes do that too; it's easy to slip there in heated arguments.

Currently the firmware development is, AFAIK, not funded at all, not counting the early pandora prototypes handed out. The entire work is being done by volunteers. ED sells the hardware, the community provides the software. How the community comes up with a piece of software is up to the portion of the community interested in said software. If there's not enough interest to make stuff happen one way or another, then there's not.
 
My sole reason of going for a Pandora was to avoid getting an android device. I have no desire to pay for android to get ported.

EDIT: On the other hand, if it is, say, $10'000 to hire someone to port it, and a first batch preorder would be, say, 4000 units, it would work out to $2.5/device. Maybe not worth the effort to bring hate towards it..
 
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As I said, (probably a bit too aggressively) if people want android on whatever-will-be-the-name at launch, either work on it or raise a kickstarter/indiegogo/… to hire some devs.

As I see it, android was never really ported and maintained on the pandora due to a lack of motivation/need from the community. So I don't see getting it on the successor as a need but more as a gimmick.
 
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