Intel: Android 4.1 Medfield port complete
updated 05:48 pm EDT, Thu September 13, 2012
Ninety percent app compatibility from ARM to Atom
Intel has successfully ported the latest version of Google's Android mobile OS, 4.1 Jelly Bean, to smartphones powered by that company's Medfield Atom processors. PC Advisor carried the story, noting that Intel's vice president and mobile computing group general manager claims to be running version 4.1 on his own mobile phone. The processor maker hasn't given any word on when or if the 4.1 port might be pushed to any the Intel-based phones running Android, such as the Lava Xolo and ZTE's Grand X.
A number of Intel employees are said to be currently using Medfield smartphones running Android 4.1, and Intel has been known for some time to have been working on a port of the OS. Intel, though, is beholden to its manufacturing partners and the telecom carriers with regard to pushing the update to Intel-powered phone owners. Smartphones with Intel inside are currently limited to either Android 2.3 or Android 4.0.
Aside from Android, which has seen its image suffer somewhat in the wake of Apple's patent victory over Samsung, Intel is said to be targeting Windows Phone 8 as an area where it can grab mobile share from chief competitor ARM. Tizen, an operating system it developed in conjunction with Samsung, is seen as another potential growth area. Representatives from the chip maker say that device manufacturers have expressed some interest in the Tizen platform, which is scalable across an array of devices and can be altered to run Android apps.
