Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike-Sanders
At it core its Linux, resting on a Unix foundation. Have a look at the OS itself, under the hood of that shiny GUI its c/java/init.d/cron/awk/etc, all down the line.
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Since you use Android maybe you can tell me if the end user has default exclusive usability of "c/java/init.d/cron/awk/etc" outside of being the foundation for the GUI and its applications. Is root available by default? Can you set the root and user passwords? Can you disable "under the hood" Android services that are enable by default. Can you compile your own software, outside of an SDK managing the way it is accomplished?
The last time I played around with a mobile device preformed Linux was Nokia's Debian fork. I really had to hack the crap out of that thing to use it with with the same liberties I could a stock Debian installation. There were apps for some of the things I wanted to do, but many where built under the limitations of the SDK. The biggest problem was when the device firmware (O.S. installation) reached library updates that only served the intended purposes of the manufacturer. There were more modern libraries available, but they were not included in the device updates.
Regardless, the device could do lots of interesting things that it was never intended to do. So, if you are going to end up with a device anyway, and it happens to have Android on it, its nice that it has some usability outside of it intended potentials. However, if one is just using top layer applications, couldn't you have the same potential on a Windows Mobile OS? I don't really know myself, I haven't looked at the application building environments that Microsoft provides.