

Via introduces APC Paper: A $99 Android PC - matthewbadeau
http://apc.io/products/paper/

======
mindstab
Ubuntu/Unity (and Gnome shell) are doing all the wrong things and this shows
it.

Ubuntu especially are now focusing on blingy desktops that somehow require
really new cards and hardware only, and yet are also trying to throw away the
traditional desktop to cram themselves onto a phone. And yet with high end
requirements they are now not the desktop OS of the light weight / poor
hardware people, they are for the high end only paradoxically.

Android is coming the other way: a good core set of features now slowly
building out into a potential desktop replacement. Because the desktop is
still important, especially for anyone looking to do any productivity work.

And after watching a fast demo on the site, I see another thing Android is
doing right. Somehow even though it's incredibly low resource it has animated
desktops. I was first exposed to the idea in the mid 2000s with a video
demoing Enlightenment 17 showing animated desktops. I even made a bug with
Gnome asking for the feature. No dice. Even with all their modern "bling" and
high and hardware requirements, they can't do live wallpapers/desktops. So
with a lame static desktop, try running them on this hardware? EXPLDOE. Won't
work.

Meanwhile light little android also has this cute feature.

And this really just underscores to me that in all ways Ubuntu/Unity/Gnome
shell are just going in all the wrong directions while Android seems to be
increasingly going in many of the right ones.

~~~
ameen
While Android is light (it ought to be, its a Mobile OS). It is NOT a desktop
replacement. Google themselves promote ChromeOS over Android.

Retro-fitting Android onto desktop devices isn't the solution, there are many
lightweight linux distributions if you want an actual desktop OS.

Animated desktops atleast to me are a gimmick, and the reason other linux
distros haven't been able to optimize their graphics is because of the desktop
parts and unreliable drivers (Nvidia & AMD), now most of these micro-PCs use
mobile parts (ARM Cortex processors, PowerVR graphics cores.) which have
readily available open-source drivers or OS-optimized proprietary blobs.

~~~
jordan0day
I think you're both right.

Obviously a desktop linux ("lightweight" or otherwise) makes more sense on a
desktop than a retrofitted android, since android will always be, first and
foremost, a mobile OS.

That said, android's app stores have produced, in a fairly short timespan, an
entire ecosystem of polished, useful apps that users love. Without android,
many of these applications wouldn't exist at all.

As a developer, a regular old linux distribution on my desktop makes more
sense[1]. As a normal everyday user who just wants the additional amenities
offered by a big monitor and a real keyboard, "android on the desktop" makes
more sense.

[1] - I'm actually partial to FreeBSD.

------
dade_
I recently purchased an APC 8750, and I found that it is very good quality
hardware. It worked out of the box, and the community forum answered most of
my questions. Overall, the web browsing performance and UI has too many
problems to be usable as a PC. I bought it to explore using Android as a
platform for IOT and other such projects and unfortunately, it fell down here
as well because it has no GPIO interface to drive other hardware including
LEDs, LCD displays, sensors, IR devices, motors, etc. Further, Google did a
great job of addressing this requirement with Android by releasing the ADK of
2011 which provides built in integration with Arduino via a USB ADB interface,
but the ADK requires Android 3.1 or higher.

Looking at the Paper's new faster performance, the addition of GPIOs, and
Android 4.0, and an optional case, it is clear that VIA has been listening to
user feedback. They certainly delivered on my wishlist. In the end the 8750
was a $65 lesson on how far Android has come in such a short period of time.

Android applications are excellent, so while I see plenty of complaints about
what it doesn't have, it is certainly getting the developer attention
necessary for applications that can / will replace productivity applications
on Windows machines. For the 80%, the desktop is nearly dead.

Further, Android is a great platform for embedded applications, and it looks
like APC has delivered an inexpensive platform for the maker / hacker
community.

Though a direct comparison to RPi is unfair, an APC comes with a power supply
and 4GB of flash, so I consider a Raspberry Pi to actually cost $75: $45
(Actual street price of a Pi) $15 Memory Card $15 for a decent USB power
supply (a low quality PS causes many of the RPi stability and Ext4 corruption
issues I have seen on forums). (Also, Android is preloaded, so it is a much
lower effort to get running.)

And the comment about fire made me laugh. The CPU of the 8750 might have
reached 40 degrees under very heavy load and the power supply is external, so
cardboard certainly won't be an issue. I thought it was funny because I
actually use the cardboard box the 8750 comes in because it is virtually
impossible to find a Neo-ITX case for the board.

Hope that provides some insight. I am glad to see VIA remains committed to
this project.

~~~
mr_luc
Note that the Raspbian OS runs on the APC as well.

------
facorreia
Cortex-A9 @800Mhz, 512MB Memory, 4GB NAND Flash, not yet available.

For $50-$60 you can already buy an Android mini-PC with double capacity in
each of these specs.

For instance:

[http://www.aliexpress.com/item/MK809-II-Android-4-1-Mini-
PC-...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/MK809-II-Android-4-1-Mini-PC-HDMI-
Stick-Rockchip-RK3066-1-6GHz-Cortex-A9-Dual/722503926.html)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
They sell the innards without the book-case as "rock", which is $80 dollars,
available now, and also add VGA out.

~~~
marekmroz
What is next, "scissors" - a solder-it-yourself kit?

~~~
limmeau
According to <http://apc.io/specifications/>, the third product is called
"8750", which somewhat damages the pun.

But seeing that the Paper has an accessible JTAG port, they could really sell
a JTAG adapter under the "Scissors" name.

------
lucian1900
I find it odd that there are so many desktop-ish things based on Android
instead of Ubuntu. One would get a lot more software and a much more familiar
experience with Ubuntu.

~~~
josteink
> I find it odd that there are so many desktop-ish things based on Android
> instead of U﻿buntu.

That may be a reasonable thing to ponder until you try to run Ubuntu on a
device which formerly ran Android. I thought the same as you and installed
Ubuntu on my Asus Transformer TF101.

While the original Transformer sports reasonably dated specifications, it's
provides a very neat, fast and responsive Android-experience.

I expected Ubuntu to offer the same, but with a wider-selection of (non touch-
optimized) software. I was thoroughly disappointed. Just opening the Terminal
Emulator took 5-10 seconds. Trying to open Firefox or any web-browser was a
joke.

What most people fails to realize (I guess because Android has adopted the
Java-is-slow-meme, either it wants to or not) is that Android is heavily
optimized because it _has_ to be responsive on ultra-light hardware. Given its
feature-set, it's a very fast OS compared to most other out there.

Ubuntu on the other hand, is heavy enough to sometimes make my Core i7 wish it
had more CPU-cycles. Putting Ubuntu on underpowered machines is something I
wouldn't recommend to anyone.

~~~
Joeri
As a contrast, i'm running ubuntu 12.04 with unity on an old atom netbook, and
it runs perfectly fine. It does need about a gig of ram to run comfortably
with a few apps open, so i suspect people having a bad experience are running
into issues with the amount of ram in their system.

Android obviously handles low memory situations better. Ubuntu can't match its
ability to free up the ram used by inactive apps.

------
protomyth
I hope that this is the restart of the under $200 PC era. I also hope that
young boys and girls are provided real tools to program these things out of
the box. Thinking about it, a new version of BASIC might not be such a bad
thing, but that might just be nostalgia for my Atari 400 8-bit BASIC
cartridge.

~~~
jordan0day
I was actually pretty disappointed with the "beginner" workflow for the
Raspberry Pi, which is essentially "run this linux distribution, which has
some educational applications pre-installed once you fire up X". Not to knock
linux, but based on the stated mission of the RPi, I would have thought
something more similar to the traditional 80's experience of "boot & start
programming" would have been the out-of-the-box default.

I've actually been mulling over starting a project like this for machines like
the RPi and APC -- an OS where you basically boot into something like a REPL,
and start coding away.

~~~
retroafroman
You could just remove X/desktop from any Linux distro and be right where you
want to be-a shell which can all command line programs and you can program it
via one liners or scripts.

------
netcan
People seem to be a lot more interested in putting android in small computers
than Chrome(ium)OS. I hope Google notices.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
You sure about that? I'm willing to bet the Samsung Chromebox outsells this
several times over.

~~~
netcan
Sure. Rightly so. The Samsung Chromebox uses an OS designed for it. I'm just
remarking that people seem to be interested in making, buying and selling
cheap, small android "PCs" (and media boxes & such).

It worth remarking on specifically because it is not where Android was
designed to go and it fits rather awkwardly.

Imagine you sell taco kits. Then you discover some people are buying your taco
kits, throwing away the shells, downloading instructions from the internet and
using the other ingredients in different proportions to make bean soup. You
also sell canned soup and it also sells decently. You might decide to bring
out a bean soup range based on the taco kit. Maybe they think it tastes better
then your intentional bean soup. Maybe they like making it themselves. Either
way, it's worth noticing.

------
vamur
Another fail from VIA after their earlier Android PC, which was derided on
their forums for being too slow. There are tons of mini pcs now available with
double the specs of the VIA pc and up to 2x lower price. Some even have 2GB
RAM and can run Ubuntu with hardware acceleration.

~~~
pm90
Can you provide some links to these vendors please? Genuinely curious

~~~
vamur
Most of vendors are on aliexpress.

For hardware acceleration only GK802 has it currently. You can purchase it
from this thread - <http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2044045>

If you don't need hardware acceleration there is an Ubuntu version for UG802
and MK808 - code.google.com/p/rk3066-linux/wiki/PicUntu.

~~~
Strshps1MoreTim
Is there an Ubuntu stick that will support 2560x1440 resolution?

------
mikecane
Heat generation + cardboard = fire hazard?

EDIT: Would that ever get a UL seal? I wonder!

~~~
joezydeco
I've got an i.MX6Q bare board running next to me. It's beefier than this book
PC (quad A9s instead of one). It has no heatsink and gets only slightly warm
to the touch after running it hard for a while.

If any excess heat _is_ generated by this thing, that aluminum backplate can
probably sink it.

As for UL certification, this thing is low-voltage DC only. The power brick
should be certified but that's probably all that's needed. And FCC class-B
like usual.

~~~
justincormack
What is the performance of that like? Wondering about getting one. I have the
imx5.

~~~
joezydeco
It's a modest step up from the imx5, and OMG MORE COREZ. We're looking at it
more for a cost-reduction move from the imx53 than a performance gain.

Freescale got the hint and put a lot of the voltage regulation on-board so
there's no need for the external PMIC anymore. That was always the dirty
little secret of these SoC chips, you needed the companion chip to make it
complete...

------
limpangel
Why would you pay 99$ for this? You can have the ODROID-U2 for just 89$, which
is better (performance wise) and supports Ubuntu 12.10 and Android 4.
[http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.ph...](http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.php)

~~~
ansible
Yeah, the thing that would prevent me from buying that "book" is the limited
RAM. It is easy to expand storage, but only having .5GB on-board RAM is not
ideal, especially for something that is going to be a desktop replacement.

------
yeureka
There are quite a lot of Android based desktop computers available, some with
better specs and cheaper than the VIA offering. Just google for "Android USB
Mini PC".

This could be a potential problem for Microsoft.

------
ck2
I absolutely love the book case. Wish you could buy those.

Would be neat for a Raspberry Pi and ironic for a DVR device.

I guess overheating is not a problem? I don't see any vents.

------
BHSPitMonkey
Seems a little short-sighted to only feature 2 USB ports. If you have one of
these set up with a keyboard and mouse and you wish to use a flash or external
drive, you'll have to temporarily sacrifice an input device or use a hub.
Surely they could have squeezed in one or two more without too much of a cost
increase.

------
lucaspiller
You can already order what looks to be the baseboard without the case:

<http://apc.io/products/rock/>

$20 cheaper, and a VGA port :D

~~~
wulczer
So disappointed when I went to <http://apc.io/products/scissors/> and got a
404 :(

------
mark-r
Interesting aesthetic, but there's no way it won't look out of place with all
the wires sticking out of it. And I think I'd want something more durable than
cardboard for the case.

------
happycube
It looks good, but knowing VIA, it's not a question of _if_ they screwed
something up, but _where_.

------
jameswyse
Looks like it'll make a nice XBMC box!

------
hatu
What do they mean by Android 4.0 (PC System)? How is it a PC and not just
Android?

~~~
adam-a
Taking PC literally as personal computer I suppose, as in desktop computer,
rather than specifically IBM compatible.

------
frozenport
What if you spill on it? Does the case stain?

------
tuananh
power consumption is what got me into this kind of thing. I donot expect a
good browsing experience nor gaming on this kind of stuff. please quit ranting
about the spec.

------
gojomo
Wow, that'd be really nice for hiding in a campus network closet, to
surreptitiously download things using a University IP address.

------
transitionality
This is a non-starter. You can get much more powerful machines for cheaper.

~~~
damian2000
I don't think they're targeting people who want or need powerful CPUs

~~~
transitionality
I'm talking about full ARM systems -- the exact same product category for the
exact same target demographic.

------
arocks
Can we stop calling something a PC until it comes with a proper input and
output device? Let's just call it a CPU, if that is a more accurate term here.

Also wondering if we connect a screen, a USB keyboard and power supply, will
it still "blend into the office environment"?

~~~
QuiteSeriousGuy
Well, I wouldn't call it a PC or a CPU or a Mac... System Unit seems
appropriate.

~~~
bitwize
What about "computer"?

