Making true on its recent promises to open up Android to x86 and thus AMD and Intel systems, Google's Android development team have now announced that the x86 branch of the Android 4.0.1 source-code is ready for use.
It's not all joy and celebrations for expectant Android x86 users however, though stable enough to release, several features, some quite key to functionality, are not yet working; sound, camera, Ethernet and Intel hardware acceleration. Whilst Ethernet would seem to be a show stopper, it's worth noting that WiFi support is present for some configurations, along with multi-touch gestures and hardware acceleration for AMD Radeon chipsets.
For those who know how to use 'git' and wish to download the source-code, here are the relevant commands:
$ repo init -u git://git.android-x86.org/manifest.git -b ics-x86
$ repo sync
This is a major step in opening-up Android to the likes of the AMD Fusion and Intel Atom CPUs. Mobile market penetration is likely no-longer feeling but a distant matter for the two firms, though with current offerings consuming many factors greater power than a typical ARM core, we wonder just what future niches the two firms will fall into. Perhaps high-powered tablets and entry-level ultra-books.
