Android may get better MIPS support, cheap tablets incoming
Remember MIPS? It's the processor architecture, much like x86 or ARM, that brought us such budget devices as the Ainol Novo7 Paladin and Skytex Primer Pocket. Devices powered by MIPS processors are usually very cheap, but they do have a serious flaw: although the Android OS will run on MIPS powered devices, most applications will not play well if they even work at all.
Fortunately, it looks like that might soon be changing. EETimes has reports that say Google is planning to build a native MIPS compiler into the next version of the Android development kit, which would make it much easier for developers to make their applications will work on the MIPS platform. Additionally, the reports say that Google is also going to improve the MIPS support in the core OS, perhaps making the OS more optimized and efficient.
Even if Google does release the developer kit, individual application developers will have to actually take advantage of it to make their applications work with MIPS processors. However, just having it there should eventually result in improved MIPS support, and if Google does further tailor Android for the approximately 1.8 million MIPS devices currently being used, it seems inevitable that we will eventually see many more cheap but effective MIPS based Android tablets.
[EETimes]
