Raspberry Pi is a low cost single board computer that a principle has been developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and with the idea of stimulating the teaching of computer science in schools. One of its main characteristics is that anyone can become a reseller or redistribute of Rasberry Pi cards, so it is understood that it is a product with registered property, but free to use. Raspberry Pi typically uses Linux-based operating systems and their potential is not to replace personal computers but as an add-on.
It even has a version of Windows 10 loT available, so you know now that Pi is close to receiving the official support from one of the most popular operating systems of the moment as it is Android. A new tree specially dedicated for the Raspberry Pi 3 has appeared in the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) repository. A novelty that will open the way for new projects and all kinds of devices in which the Raspberry Pi will take a greater role.
The virtue of being open source
Launching a project as open source makes any developer can use the work of the original to improve it or add certain features. In a project like the one we have in hand, such as Raspberry Pi 3, it can result in hundreds of options depending on the support that is given, and as you can see, it already has a large number of OSs at its disposal for anyone to give it a spin. nut.
Raspberry Pis are cheap, from credit card size and have ARM on board with a focus on education and open source software. Many experts and gurus are passionate about Pi due to its open nature, small size, and wide variety of ports and software.
For so only 35 dollars, you can have one with a Broadcom BCM2837 ARMv8 64-bit chip clocked at 1.2 GHz, 1GB of RAM, a VideoCore IV GPU, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1. From this base, as can happen with a normal PC motherboard, we can add a series of components through external devices. You can count for storage with a microSD card, for sound a 3,5mm audio jack or use USB ports among a wide variety of components all related to hardware.
Android on the Pi 3
That a tree or category appears in the AOSP repository specifically for Raspberry Pi, means that we could have Android fully working without major worries. I mean, a card-sized device with special functions of Android that we all know.
The funny thing is that in the device tree of AOSP Nexus devices usually appear mostly. It is quite strange to find a non-Google device in AOSP, so it seems that Google is getting more attention than due to this little computer. Perhaps it has to do with those intentions about the Internet of Things and those products that could use the Raspberry format to bring Android to any device that comes to mind.
With official support from source code, it should also be easier for developers to have Android on a Raspberry Pi 3. This also allows you to install more than 1,5 million apps on the Pi to make the device do what you want. So the possibilities increase considerably by being able to have a hacked version of Android TV on the Pi 3 or even Remix OS.
Now we will wait to see how the repository is being filled with lines of code from a large number of developers who will find Android as a special excuse to enter the world that opens Raspberry Pi 3.
