Android Nougat unofficially ported to Raspberry Pi 3

Hungry for some Nougat but don’t really have a Nexus nor plan to buy an LG V20 when it comes out? If you don’t mind not being able to bring along your Android 7.0 with you and have a spare Raspberry Pi 3 lying around, then you’re in for a treat. Peter Yoon, who was responsible for bringing Android TV to the extremely popular single board computer (SBC), has done it again, this time with Android 7.0 Nougat. Of course it’s not yet stable nor is it official, but since “official” will probably never happen, this is a modder’s best bet.

One of the best things about Android is that its open source nature allows it to be ported to many devices that are either an afterthought for Google or not even in its radars. Although it was recently speculated that Android would support the Raspberry Pi 3 in an official capacity, that has not yet happened. For now, the modding and DIY community will have to rely on enterprising hackers like Yoon.

Although Android 7.0 itself is “stable” by Google’s standards, an unofficial port will naturally not have the same guarantee. So while Android Nougat does run on the RPi 3 now, the experience is still less than ideal. Things still crash, and the user interface isn’t exactly going to be the best fit when displayed on a large screen, looking more like a magnified smartphone interface in landscape. Still, it’s in a very early stage, so we won’t be too quick to judge.

So why bother porting Android Nougat to the Raspberry Pi 3? Other than the sheer pleasure of doing it, Android 7.0 in particular has some features that would make it usable on a computing setting, particularly split screen and multi-window functionality. Hopefully, Google still intends to bring Android officially to the platform, which, by the way, Microsoft is already officially supporting with its Windows 10 IoT Core.

VIA: Geek Till it Hertz