Game-changer! Android apps on Ubuntu

Posted by | 05/26/2009 | 18 Comments

Android apps on Ubuntu

Android apps on Ubuntu

Word out of Ars Technica is Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, is developing a method to run mobile-type Android apps on desktop-type Ubuntu, as well as other flavors of Linux. Sounds great for anyone with an Android phone and Linux PC, which is a pretty narrow sliver of the population, but I think the implications will be much more profound, potentially reshaping the computer industry. Sound unlikely? Allow me to explain.

Until recently, the notion of running the apps from your mobile device on your PC seemed unnecessary. Mobile apps typically had PC equivalents that were more powerful and easier to use. Why run Windows Mobile mail on your desktop, when any number of client or web-based apps offered superior functionality?

For the most part that’s still true, but mobile apps have grown both more powerful and easier to use over the years. That combination makes them highly appealing to the consumer market that smartphones have begun to reach in the past few years. If you like the simple, powerful email system on your BlackBerry Storm, then why wouldn’t you want the same system on your PC? Thus, a potentially huge audience of users seeking the same experience on both their mobile and PC has begun to form. Canonical seems positioned to seize this opportunity. But they’re not alone.

Apple has a powerful advantage in this realm. Obviously, the breadth and reach of their App Store is their key strength in any mobile app analysis, but also, unlike everyone else, they use the same basic OS for both their phones and computers. We know iPhone apps can run on Mac OS X because there’s an emulator developers use to test apps before loading them on their test devices. It’s safe to assume every iPhone app has already been successfully tested on Mac OS X. What Canonical wants to do with Android apps and Ubuntu, Apple can assuredly already do with iPhone apps and Mac OS X. I can certainly see them going a step further with a dashboard-like system running iPhone apps in separate windows with multi-touch control for zooming, rotation, and shaking. When rumors of an Apple tablet eventually pan out (I’m not holding my breath for this year, but I think it’s inevitable), I would be shocked if Apple did not enable it to run iPhone apps, luring their army of iPhone users to buy them.

Microsoft appears to be in a similar position as Apple, but not quite. Emulating Windows Mobile on a PC is simple enough, but the operating systems have different foundations. Compatibility issues will likely arise as a result. Worse yet, enabling iPhone apps to run on Macs gives iPhone owners strong incentive to buy Macs, driving Apple’s larger customer base to their most profitable product line. Microsoft sees no such benefit from doing the same. Their Windows Mobile base is a fraction of their PC base, and the vast majority, if not all, of Windows Mobile users already use PCs. They gain nothing from following Canonical’s example except to stay competitive.

The other players in the mobile OS market aren’t even in the same playing field. Palm, RIM, and Nokia have no vested interest in PCs. They’d need to also make their mobile apps run on PCs to stay competitive, but they don’t have nearly as much at stake as Apple and Microsoft. On the PC side, Canonical and the various Linux makers stand to benefit from their effort, but neither they nor Android hold enough of the market to have a major impact either way.

No, by itself, Canonical’s plan does not have the mass to shift the game, but it should drive the heavy players to follow their lead and that would indeed be a game-changer. This seemingly small development could have huge repercussions. The other thing to watch, however, is whether Apple will pre-empt their efforts in their OS announcements at WWDC next month.   It will be very interesting to see how things will unfold, but I believe the convergence of mobile apps and PC  operating systems, as being pursued by Canonical,  is inevitable.

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Category: Mobile, Software

About the Author (Author Profile)

My name is Mark Sumimoto; I am Sumocat. I dabble in all areas of mobile computing, but my focus is Windows-based Tablet PCs and pen input. They’ve been part of my arsenal since 2004, and I’m proud to have pioneered the field of ink blogging, earning a spot as a Microsoft MVP for Touch and Tablets in the process. My current tools include a Fujitsu Lifebook T900, TEGA v2, and iPhone 4. Email me: sumocat [at] notebooks.com
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  • Gyula Bognar

    Prophesy is difficult and seldom comes through. Linux cannot get public acceptance, past 2% “market share” so even if they are a 100% successful, the impact is minimal. If Linux developers were more market savvy, they would fix their OS to be like Mac OS or even Windows, which installs and works, has a nice GUI and one does not have to know programming to set it up. Let me say my prophesy and everybody should hope, I am wrong. Linux is not going to get into the major league in the next 100 years.

  • Sara Fauzia

    “If Linux developers were more market savvy, they would fix their OS to be like Mac OS or even Windows, which installs and works, has a nice GUI and one does not have to know programming to set it up.”

    That ranks high among the most *ignorant* comments I’ve read online. I’m a Linux user, and, before then, for a good eighteen years only exposed to Windows. I thought Linux was for the geek you stereotypically classified. Every day, Linux is coming up with updates that make it better and easier to use, and new software developers are innovating. I just downloaded a lightweight volume manager (to mount external hardware devices) that didn’t exist before this year. It works wonderfully, and isn’t so heavyweight and bloated that I can’t stand it. Which brings me to my next point. Linux can be as Windows-ish as you want it to be (i.e. bloated), or it can be as lightweight as you care to make it. It’s your own choice. You can choose–simply by choosing which Linux distro to install, nothing more complicated than that–to have a very efficient automated system, where you never even see the commandline, like openSUSE, or configure everything yourself and experience great performance and fast boots… and for the latter you *still* don’t have to be a programmer. Linux users are so friendly that they’ll copy and paste anything they’ve already written for others to use, and, since Google is available to all, there’s no excuse for not finding what is out there.

    As for a nice GUI, it’s incredibly easy to change the GUI in Linux. You just download a theme into your .themes directory (a no-brainer, and easily understood if searched through google), or, if you’re using Ubuntu (or any other distro that uses GNOME, a desktop environment already configured with… you would have never guessed, automated services to do everything for you except tie your shoelaces), the Appearance Manager will install it for you. Try imagining changing your themes, or your icon files, so easily in Windows.

    Your prophecy is absolutely untenable as it is already based on false assumptions. Sorry.

  • Sara Fauzia

    I should have said changing themes, though you can certainly change the GUI by using a different desktop environment as well, such as KDE. Google it sometime.

    Oh, and in response to this article, I think the idea is fantastic. I’ve had some programs only on my Palm that I wanted to use on the desktop, and I had actually registered just to get the emulator and use it (when I was using Windows–the emulator was for Windows; could perhaps work in Wine, but it isn’t that necessary). I am, unfortunately, quite unfamiliar with the software available to the Android… I do know, as a tablet PC user, I’d like to have my hands on that Cupcake virtual keyboard. This has great potential and I’m glad Canonical is taking an interest; wouldn’t be bad for Apple too, either.

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