According to DigiTimes' sources, Mediatek will be Google's strategic solution partner for the $100 Android One smartphones that Google announced at the recent I/O 2014 conference held at San Francisco. With Android One, Google aims to speed up to its next 1 billion Android users. This project will only be targeting developing countries like India, Brazil and others.
Google has already announced that it will partner with Indian smartphone manufacturers Micromax, Spice and Karbonn to manufacture the Android One smartphones. Teaming up with Mediatek seems to be a logical step for Google as Mediatek specializes in providing low cost chipsets for smartphones and is already extensively by all the three device manufacturers Google has mentioned it will be working with.
It will be interesting to note here that Mediatek is notorious for not releasing its kernel sources and thus it generally repels Android developers as this takes away their ability to tinker with the device. On the other hand, the Nexus series, the only current device lineup that Google's name is associated with, is very developer friendly. Nexus devices' bootloaders can be unlocked and their kernel sources are also public. We'd love to see Google teaching some much needed lessons to Mediatek on this front. If this doesn't happen, we might not be able to see Cyanogenmod and the likes on the Android One smartphones.
See the original article at Digitimes here.
Google has already announced that it will partner with Indian smartphone manufacturers Micromax, Spice and Karbonn to manufacture the Android One smartphones. Teaming up with Mediatek seems to be a logical step for Google as Mediatek specializes in providing low cost chipsets for smartphones and is already extensively by all the three device manufacturers Google has mentioned it will be working with.
It will be interesting to note here that Mediatek is notorious for not releasing its kernel sources and thus it generally repels Android developers as this takes away their ability to tinker with the device. On the other hand, the Nexus series, the only current device lineup that Google's name is associated with, is very developer friendly. Nexus devices' bootloaders can be unlocked and their kernel sources are also public. We'd love to see Google teaching some much needed lessons to Mediatek on this front. If this doesn't happen, we might not be able to see Cyanogenmod and the likes on the Android One smartphones.
See the original article at Digitimes here.
