The Raspberry Pi 3 may soon officially support Android

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,240   +192
Staff member

There’s no shortage of operating systems for Raspberry Pi 3 owners to choose from including multiple Linux distributions and even Windows 10 IoT Core. In the near future, the popular hobby board may add Android to its growing list of supported operating systems.

As Ars Technica points out, a recent device tree surfaced for the Raspberry Pi 3 in Google’s Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository. Said repository currently sits empty aside from an “initial empty repository” comment from Thomas Joseph Avila dated April 19.

Ebon Upton created the Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2009 in hopes of getting more children interested in programming. The project was an instant hit with the first batch of boards selling out in minutes, far surpassing any expectations that Upton may have had.

The latest iteration, the aforementioned Raspberry Pi 3, features a 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor clocked at 1.2GHz alongside 1GB of RAM and a VideoCore IV GPU ticking along at 400MHz. It also features integrated 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, four USB 2.0 ports, a microSD card slot for storage, an HDMI video port and more. It’s not exactly a powerhouse of a platform but that’s not its intended market, especially given its $35 price point.

Opening the doors to the vast app ecosystem of Android would only further bolster the popularity and flexibility of the Raspberry Pi 3 and future iterations.

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