ARM-Android ecosystem transforming large-screen compute in ways that echo smartphone experience
Think back to 2009, as the Android smart phone era dawned and the mobile computing world was changed forever. Up to that point, the utility of a mobile phone was still voice communications. Data, location and apps-store services were rudimentary, if available at all.
But the introduction of the Android operating system, coupled with the low power-consumption, size and cost benefits of the ARM architecture, began to transform the very definition of mobile phone design and user experience.
This transformation was highlighted by:
- Longevity: Advances in low-power design and battery life put a day’s worth of always-on computing in consumers’ hands.
- Enhanced utility: The availability of rich graphics and media content on portable devices helped make feature phones an integral tool in consumers’ daily lives.
- Services: The ease of apps development and the introduction of app stores, such as Google Play, brought about a significant increase in number of apps and apps developers. It simplified the consumer experience in many ways, including eliminating the need to install CDs. In the process, such services revolutionized the broader software world.
- Form factor: Thin, light and quiet form factors coupled with good performance, device/data security and highly responsive devices continue to influence systems design.
- Connectivity: Wireless connections (cellular, Bluetooth and WiFi) were integral to the utility of smart phones, connecting users to a vast world of apps and services.
Since 2009, each smart phone generation has delivered improved performance at the same or lower power consumption, more robust user experiences and richer apps. Thanks to relentless ARM ecosystem innovation, each new generation’s premium phone migrated over time to different price points, opening new computing experiences to more (and sometimes previously smart phone-less) consumers. The Android-ARM ecosystem has helped proliferate computing throughout the world.
In concert with this hardware revolution, a software ecosystem has created indispensible apps and enabled software developers to reach new levels of creativity. The smart phone has become, for billions of people, an indispensible device in daily life, helping users connect and communicate, learn and share and become more productive and efficient at work and at home.
Software and hardware entrepreneurs around the world have extended the Android smart phone and apps ecosystem into productive and clever new applications in a variety of industries, from construction to industrial, entertainment, mining and medical, education and the physical sciences. In short, there is arguably not a single industry that hasn’t benefitted from this innovation.
Indeed, this ecosystem, coalescing around the Android operating system and the ARM architecture, has created profound change:
- In 2009, 180 million smart phones shipped; today we’re shipping 1.5 billionsmart phones annually.
- The related silicon revenue is $26 billion annually.
- On the software side, more than 1.5 million apps have been developed.
- In the first quarter of 2016 alone, consumers downloaded 11 billion items from the Google Play store.
New era dawns
This mobile ecosystem, echoing 2009, is now fundamentally influencing large-screen compute, including Chromebooks. Soon, users will enjoy Android apps on Chromebook, bringing the mobile experience, the diversity and innovation of the Android ecosystem and ARM technology to large-screen devices.
This is occurring in part because consumers now demand more of their smart phone “mobile” experience on those large-screen devices—experiences including the ones mentioned above (long battery life, rich graphics and media content, widespread apps availability and so forth). The ARM ecosystem will help deliver technology to enable that.
Since their introduction in 2011, Chromebooks have set a foundation of speed, simplicity, security and shareability, and Chrome has established itself as the best operating system for the web. Android apps build of top of that foundation to provide additional functionality across productivity, entertainment, games, social and messaging. With the addition of Android, Chrome is now on par with other operating systems, erasing the features gap with traditional laptop operating systems. With Google Play, Chromebooks get one of the fastest growing, mobile-first app ecosystems in the world. In short, consumers will soon begin to engage with big-screen devices in ways that echo the satisfying and productive experiences they have enjoyed on their smartphones.
For developers, the availability of Android apps on Chromebooks creates new markets. It will open new vistas for developers to push their apps into the large-screen form factor and to develop new sets of apps and use cases that leverage newer form factors and system performance. The scalability opportunity is clear. Microsoft, for example, is supporting Office productivity suites on Android.
System design implications
Android apps on Chromebooks will significantly influence form factor design. OEMs, therefore, should consider how:
- Convertible form factors and Android apps deliver a full tablet experience in a clamshell device.
- The convertible form-factor encourages users to hold the device much more than traditional clamshell, which makes the materials much more prominent and important to the experience and to design considerations.
- Weight and thickness determine whether the user is using the device in a tablet mode and therefore getting the full potential of Android.
- Keyboard and mouse input will influence consumers’ use cases.
ARM has worked closely with its partners to deliver compelling designs on Android devices—thin, sleek devices that offer long battery life and compelling performance such as:
- Game console-quality graphics performance on 2.5K and 4K resolution screens.
- Support for 4K video content.
- Support for multiple camera sensors with resolutions and frame rates more typical of a digital SLR.
Performance gains
What can OEMs expect on the performance front? If the history of mobile innovation is any guide (and it is), they can expect a lot. Stretching back to the dawn of the Android smartphone era in 2009, with the first single-core ARM Cortex-A8-powered device, CPU performance-per core has jumped 15x since then, while multicore performance has soared 49x.
These types of technical benefits have helped the software ecosystem flourish in the past decade, making ARM ubiquitous with Android, to the point where
- 97% of all games are ARM native.
- 40% of top 100 apps games are ARM native only.
- 89% apps & games target the ARM architecture.
This success is tied to Android apps running natively on ARM. As the smart phone industry started to ramp, it was only natural for Android developers to write to the hardware that was powering the smartphone revolution. As the market opportunity exploded, other architecture companies wanted to exploit the market growth.
Native advantage: ARM
But for other architectures to try to be competitive, they have had to translate the ARM native code into their own instruction forms within their architectural constraints. This comes at a cost in terms of performance, energy use and user experience. Efficiency, the work done per unit of energy, is heavily impacted where translation between architectures is required.
A third of the top 200 Android apps need their code to be translated at run-time to execute on non-ARM-based devices. This can translate to an unpleasant user experience (as well as cost engineering time and effort). For example, searching for a text string in a PDF document can take four times longer on a non-ARM-based device. These sorts of slowdowns can lead to additional re-engineering time and effort. However, the good news is that nearly 1.6 times the number of native apps runs on ARM-based devices than any other mobile processor.
As Android moves onto Chromebook, this binary translation of non-ARM apps will continue. On ARM-based Chromebook hardware, Android runs on top of the same ARM Linux kernel as Chrome OS and uses Chromes OS to filter user events such as mouse, keyboard and screen updates through to the Android OS. If the underlying hardware is not ARM-based, the version of Android that runs on the Chromebook will still need to incorporate binary translation technology. The Chromebook will experience the same performance degradation and increased power consumption because of the code translation required.
The advantage of Android apps, most of which run natively on ARM, can be seen in solutions such as Pocket Code and Lightbot. These are very popular apps for educators, who tend to favor Chromebooks, but to date the apps have been available only on Android. With Android app ecosystem being enabled on Chromebook, a new world of solutions opens for users. And since Pocket Code and Lightbot are written natively on ARM, users won’t have to worry about performance degradation or increased power consumption by using these apps on ARM.
Conclusion
The same ARM ecosystem innovation that changed the mobile world in 2009 is at work again, this time in Chromebooks. Android on Chrome eliminates the features gap between clamshells and traditional laptop operating systems and unlocks a vast new potential for designers and apps developers. At the same time, it provides a fresh opportunity for the ARM ecosystem to contribute to and influence the large-screen compute segment, bringing with it expertise and experience in low-power design and high performance compute and graphics capability.
For consumers, it means those rich mobile applications they’ve embraced in the smartphone and tablet form factors are moving to large-screen devices, where they will transform the traditional laptop experience.
For OEMs, the benefits of the ARM ecosystem coupled with Android on Chrome mean new and compelling design opportunities to deliver robust experiences in thin, sleek and low-power form factors for new users.
For developers, Android on Chrome unlocks new markets and scalable opportunities for use cases based on the form factor, performance and low-power attributes that the ARM ecosystem is delivering to OEMs.
Large screen mobile devices are expected to grow from 230 million units in 2014 to 330 million units in 2019, according to the research firm IDC. That’s a healthy rate that echoes the growth that forecasters anticipated in 2009 when the ARM ecosystem and the Android apps developer community joined forces to change the mobile world. Seven years later, that ARM-Android partnership is transforming the mobile world again.
