At Intel’s recent IDF conference, Andy Rubin, the “father of Android”, got up on stage and announced that all new versions of Google’s Android operating system are going to be optimized for not only ARM processors, but Intel processors as well. Considering how long Intel has been talking up their chips being used in pocketable mobile devices, we didn’t really think too much of this announcement. Now thanks to a new rumor spotted on PocketNow, we may have to change our minds. They say that HTC will unveil an Intel powered device running Android at either the Consumer Electronic Show in January 2012 or Mobile World Congress in February 2012. Curiously, they don’t specify what kind of device it’s going to be. Chances are it’s going to be a tablet due to power consumption issues. That gets us thinking: What exactly are game developers going to do? They don’t write their apps for Dalvik, they do native. Will they need to rewrite their titles to support yet another chipset? They already had to do that when Tegra 2 hardware hit the scene.
Anyway, the bigger question here is how exactly is HTC going to treat this Intel Android tablet? Are they going to use it as an experiment to see what it’s like to build computers again? Many of you don’t remember the HTC Shift, but it was a 7 inch ultra mobile PC that came out in early 2008. It had both an x86 and ARM processor inside so you could run Windows Vista or Windows Mobile. HTC has experience working with Intel, and for some odd reason they want to rekindle that old flame and see what will happen. We’ve got to wonder though, why doesn’t HTC just build an ARM based personal computer that runs Windows 8?
Anyway, CES and MWC aren’t actually that far away, less than half a year. We’ll be live from both of them. Stay tuned!