Don't know of any. My Surface Pro 7 will now load an Android subsystem but it's limited to the Amazon app store (though it's nice to get a better Kindle app on it now).
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iPad The iPad is not for traditional Mac users
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Don't know of any. My Surface Pro 7 will now load an Android subsystem but it's limited to the Amazon app store (though it's nice to get a better Kindle app on it now).
That’s something but Amazon app store is pretty limited from what I remember. That’s really strange. With all the Windows and Android manufacturers that throw anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks, you’d figure we’d have seen them.
It is indeed limited; it will be interesting to see if it goes further. I'm not all that interested myself, though - my SP7 is good as it is and I have 6 Android tablets in a drawer I could turn to. But the Kindle app is good and it's really the only one I was interested in.
There used to be quite a few, mainly from Chinese manufacturers... nowadays not so much. They made little sense, since they all run on X86... which also means thick, heavy, short battery life and slow (or alternaltevy noisy).
What we haven't seen is tablets that can run Windows on Arm and Android, as I guess there are exclusive contracts...
That may come in the future. But I'll be honest, I don't care about Android, if the can make a WoA tablet that's is fast and has none of the disadvantages of X86, I have perfectly fine with Windows (I know of course I am in the minority about this in an Apple-centric forum... ? )
I have installed the Android sub-system on my Surface book 3 and there are ways to install the playstore. And I did just that. Most things run fine. But as I said above, I don't really care about Android, for me Windows is a much superior system, so for me it was more curiosity than anything else....
Yeah, I went the distance with Android from the first betas, rooting my devices and adding custom ROMs. Those days are past.
My smartphone is a Samsung since the Galaxy S1, and I am perfectly fine with Android on phones and I have 2 Galaxy Tabs, 12.4in and 14.6in. The larger one I got it mainly for watching movies, since there is nothing this size and aspect ratio for that in the iPad world and in the Windows world the only thing that resembles it is the Surface Book 15 (and I have the 2 and the 3), but the battery life of the tablet is terrible (1-2 hours at best). The 12.4 I use it 95% as wirelss monitor for my Windows desktops with an app that is a sort of Sidecar on steroids, which basically turns it into a sort of Surface pro, but without all the drawbacks of x86 in terms of battery life, fan noise, heat, weight etc. so I basically use it as a Windows tablet... I am not saying that Android is terrible, and in some things like multitasking it's actually better than iPadOS, but I cannot do any real work on Android (and to be honest on iPadOS either).
Ah that’s right, I forgot Windows and Android run on different chips. But Android was able to run on x86 on those previous devices? Through an emulator?
That would be strange if there were exclusive contracts because the two OSes don’t seem to be direct competitors. But I guess MS wants people to see Windows as sufficient for tablet use, not needing Android.
I wouldn’t want such a device either. I was just curious why I hadn’t seen a dual boot in the non-Apple world considering how many people in MR seem to want it from Apple.
Android can run on X86 natively. I have a 2014 Lenovo tablet that runs on X86, no different than ARM.
Concerning exclusivity, have you noticed how nobody has used the 8CX for Android? Sure gen 1 and 2 are not better than the current 8 gen 1, but were better than the Snapdragon 855 they are derived from.
And 8CX gen 3 is actually better, at least in multicore, than 8 gen 1.
Qualcomm is clearly keeping the 2 lines separate...
We'll see if this continues with the 2023/2024 Nuvia chip...
Had no idea Android can run on x86.
I’m not familiar at all with the non-Apple Arm chip scene, and I definitely don’t have deep technical knowledge, but is it possible the different chip lines are just customized/optimized for the different OSes and that’s why they’re separate?
But anyway, maybe it’s just exclusivity. Or maybe Android tablet demand is just so nonexistent that no one cares to make it happen. Kinda sad. I’m not really dissatisfied with my iPad but I still wish iPads had some real competition.
My Intel MBP even runs way more ARM mobile apps than my 16” M1 Max MBP despite having an ARM chip.
It’s actually kinda funny as Apple highlighted the feature that M1 Mac’s can run ARM mobiles apps, while Intel Mac can run a whole lot more ARM mobile apps.
So I’m hearing, interesting. I assume they run on M Macs too?
Of course iPad apps can run on Macs too, but no touch/tablet form factor is the thing.
In theory, there is probably a way to make all Android apps work on Mac OS X. I didn’t get the satisfactory results I was looking for so far.
But in bootcamp / Windows, it is super easy to do with Intel Mac’s.
I think what’s interesting is if iPad can dual boot. The iPadOS for simplicity and MacOS for heavy work.
Far from it, cheap Android tablet have always outsold iPads, just like the base iPad vastly ousells the other iPads.
But over the last couple of years Samsung has managed to revive interest in higher end Android tableta thanks to big improvements in hardware, software and support (often copying some good and even some bad things from iPads, like the remove for no reason of the headphone jack).
And especially since the S7 series they have been selling well not only in the new market but also in the used one, holding their value pretty well.
These latest developments are pretty much unknown to people in the Apple ecosystem...
For what it's worth, the Samsung tablets have been looking really nice lately. I have no motivation to switch though.
I've been tempted to dip my toe back in with one of those new Samsung tablets. My interest is not from need but rather as a retired engineer, these are in many ways just my toys.
I don't expect people in the Apple ecosystem to switch. It does not make too much sense for them. But things are different for those using Windows and a Samsung phone (and that's ton of people since Windows is by far the most used OS and Samsung is the second largest smartphone manufacturer, and from time to time also the first), or for those like me who have multiple devices of multiple brands (Macs, Windows, Android phones, iPads).
Once you leave the ecosystem, the advantages of OneUI vs iPadOS become apparent.
Let me give you un example:
Last week I sold a Tab S7FE (12.4in screen) to a friend and last night I was teaching her how to split screen etc. And while showing her I realized how much more limited iPadOS is.
Take a simple example, split screen works only side by side but not top and bottom, but that's terrible if you want to compare 2 documents as it basically becomes like 2 iPad minis side by side in the 12.9in pro, basically unreadable without costanly zooming in and out and scrolling from left to right. Put it top and bottom and you can have the documents in full size and easily check and compare sentence by sentence etc....
Or you want to watch an instruction video and take notes as the same time, again top and bottom would be way better than side by side.
Or you want to decide how much you want your split ratio to be? With Apple it's either half of 1/4, nothing else. With Samsung you decide.
And she was like "Why does Apple not allow something so trivial? Do they think they customers are too dumb to do more than that? "
And I am not even talking about using DEX or an external display, just the standard UI...
lol, I get where you're coming from, but I used to have an Android phone + Windows PC and while not as seamless as the Apple ecosystem, it's definitely not as restricted.
That said, I was referring more to how Samsung packages more with their tablets, unless I'm mistaken, I remembered hearing that the high end Samsung tablets coming with the Z Pen or whatever their stylus is called. To me, that's a legitimate plus that would be a factor in switching over should I have to replace my iPad and for whatever reason I decided to not get another iPad. Like I genuinely think the recent Samsung tablets are neat in terms of hardware, software is a mixed bag but it's Android so I'd be able to somewhat work around that.
Yeah every S series tablet since the S6 comes with a S-pen (although some have more sophisticated S-pens)
Oh I didn’t know that. I coulda swore I read in various places that Android tablet market has been dying. And it was somewhat corroborated by my experience since I’ve only seen my few friends who use tablets using iPads, but now that you mention it I recall seeing their multiple kids using Android tablets haha. But that’s only my tiny sample size. That’s good to hear.
How is the Android tablet app ecosystem?
Well, with kids there are plenty of budget Android tablets, those have never really disappeared. Maybe "dead" is not the right term but your choices aren't super great like they were years ago for Android based tablets, especially if you mostly buy gear from Best Buy or Walmart. Go to one of those stores, it's more or less Samsung and Amazon Android based tablets. And a light dusting of other brands.