Re: Android port of Emacs

[Jean Louis]

* Filipp Gunbin <fgunbin@fastmail.fm> [2023-06-29 23:36]:
> I certainly don't count as a frequent contributor (and never used
> Android, except one tablet long ago), but still.  What concerns me is
> the target audience of Android port.  Why would you use Emacs on
> Android?  There're various Android devices around me - mainly phones and
> TVs, but I wouldn't do any serious practical work on them.  If you have
> Android phone/tablet, then to use Emacs you perhaps need a separate
> keyboard and display.  I doubt that would cost less than a laptop
> capable of running Emacs.

Using Emacs on Android is for same reasons as on other operating
systems. For writing text, writing SMS, controlling SMS messages,
sending them, controlling calls, initiating calls, marketing,
receiving and sending e-mails, running cron jobs, collecting reports,
collecting GPS data, optimizing images, sorting files,and X number of
other uses!

I am sure that your usage case do not fall there. You need no Emacs on
Android. And I need it, as I have those above use cases.

Android devices are small and easy to power by USB and that USB may be
also powered by solar energy, unlike many desktop computers.

Finally, Android has many forks, including fully free software:

List of custom Android distributions - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distributions

NOT HAVING Emacs on Android is terrible experience.

> One more note regarding Android (mostly a rumour).  I work in online
> cinema, and for years we had problems supporting various TV platforms.
> It once appeared that more and more vendors switch to Android, and
> that's good - less work for us.  But now most of them are just creating
> their own custom platforms - to avoid licensing costs put on them by
> Google.

See above, there are many Android based distributions not paying anything to 
Google!


Jean

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