Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. Learn more.
(Update: download it now) Android multitasking just got good: Remix OS coming to a computer near you
Update, January 12: As promised, Remix OS for PC is now available for download. The package weighs 692MB and the download page makes it clear that it’s still alpha software intended for developers. You should expect a number of bugs and inconsistencies, especially in the ways apps work with a mouse and keyboard setup. Full Remix OS installation instructions are available on the download page.
Original post, January 7: Jide, makers of the super affordable Remix Mini PC and the Jide Ultra Remix tablet, are bringing its in-house Remix OS to a computer near you. Here at CES 2016, Jide has announced that starting Tuesday, January 12th, anyone who would like to try out an Alpha build of Remix OS on their own computer will be able to do so for free. You’ll need an Intel or AMD based computer to try it out, and installation is quite easy.
Remix OS is based on Android KitKat for now, and the folks at Jide say that it will soon be upgraded to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It has full access to the Google Play Store, so just about any Android app that’s available on Google Play can be downloaded on Remix OS. You can even login to your main Google account, allowing you to download applications you’ve previously purchased on your other Android devices. If you find an app that’s not properly optimized for Remix OS, you can let the company know and the Jide team says that they’ll optimize it as soon as they can. For developers to properly optimize their applications to work with the new OS, app makers will simply need to stick as closely to Google’s best practices as possible. In our short time testing the OS, a number of popular applications were available for use, including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Clash of Clans, and many more.
For right now the consumer-ready version of Remix OS is in an alpha stage, so not all features are available yet. For the most part, it’s a functioning system, though it’s probably not stable enough to use as your main operating system.
The big story here is that you’ll be able to use traditional Android applications with a windowed application interface, similar to how you’d move windows around on Windows, OS X or Linux. The OS doesn’t weigh that much either, so it can be loaded up on a flash drive or a similar device. Now that Jide makes it much easier to get work done on Android, this whole portable Remix OS idea is geared towards college students and emerging markets, where public, shared computers are everywhere.
Jide is still pushing the Remix Mini, as well. The Remix Mini comes with Remix OS pre-installed. It packs a quad-core 1.2GHz A53 processor, 1 or 2GB of RAM, 8 or 16GB of on-board storage, two USB ports, as well as an HDMI, Ethernet and headphone port. It’s available now from Amazon for just $70.
There’s a lot of potential here, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for the future. Any thoughts? What do you think about Remix OS coming to a computer near you?