- Rabbit R1 AI box is actually an Android app in a limited $200 box, running on AOSP without Google Play.
- Rabbit Inc. is unhappy about details of its tech stack being public, threatening action against unauthorized emulators.
- AOSP is a logical choice for mobile hardware as it provides essential functionalities without the need for Google Play.
I think the issue is that people were expecting a custom (enough) OS, software, and firmware to justify asking $200 for a device that’s worse than a $150 phone in most every way.
I didn’t know how much work they put into customizing it, but being derived from Android does not mean it isn’t custom. Ubuntu is derived from Debian, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a custom OS. The fact that you can run the apk on other Android devices isn’t a gotcha. You can run Ubuntu .deb files on other Debian distros too. An OS is more of a curated collection of tools, you should not be going out of your way to make applications for a derivative os incompatible with other OSes derived from the same base distro.
The Rabbit OS is running server side.
I would expect bespoke software and OS in a $200 device to be way less impressive than what a multi billion dollar company develops.