In January 2016, Jide introduced Remix OS 2.0, an operating system capable of transposing the Android ecosystem virtually to any computer.
A year later, the company sees it further: it announces the arrival of Remix OS for Mobile, with the argument of the single terminal.
Microsoft, Samsung, Canonical and now Jide … Decidedly, the concept of the smartphone (or tablet) that replaces the computer to the wind in the stern.
With the Android developer, in any case, it is believed: with an Android base – and therefore free -, Remix OS would have all the keys to be the first environment to impose on both the front of the fixed and the mobile.
It should be said that on the smartphone/tablet side, Jide does not take any risk.
Remix OS for Mobile should be “as close to Android stock as possible”. It is therefore on the desktop – the initial core of the project – that all the added value is found.
Concretely, in use, a smartphone animated by Remix OS for Mobile should strongly resemble the same device mu by Android.
It should, however, be distinguished by the presence of the Singularity function, which, much like the Microsoft Continuum, allows to activate a dedicated mode when a monitor is connected.
In practice, it’s Remix OS “tout court”, with its management of windowed mode and its interface cut for keyboard and mouse, which will take charge of the relay in computer mode. But Jide also announces a TV mode, with which the interface will be more like that of a box type set-top box.
Remix OS for Mobile still has a few months ahead to evolve. It should not be available for download until the second half of 2017.
According to the young firm, Remix OS for Mobile addresses all the needs of new Internet users, in the emerging countries.
The idea of the single terminal, backed by an ecosystem as popular as Android, must seduce those who can not afford to buy both a good smartphone and a good computer. On paper, this positioning makes sense.
One can wonder, however, that such users, a priori far from being power users, will really come to the task of downloading a new operating system? Certainly, this one is free.
However, it still has its lot of bugs and has the disadvantage that the Play Store is not installed natively. In other words, a minimum of do-it-yourself is to be expected.
