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Samsung’s dreams of dual-boot devices is nothing new. We’ve heard time and again of their aspirations for the Ativ line of tablets which would give users an Android and Windows device in one. Their best proof of concept to date used a button to nearly-instantly switch between platforms.
While those aspirations may have died down due to pressure from Google and Microsoft to keep dual-boot devices from becoming a thing, that doesn’t mean they have stopped working on improving the technology. A new patent shows a cool improvement on the dual-boot concept.
Samsung has patented a system that allows you to run Android and Windows simultaneously. Instead of having to reboot a device to switch modes, users would only have to make a swiping gesture on the display to bring up their preferred OS.
We’re not sure about the specifics, but the language in the patent sounds like this could allow you to preserve sessions whenever you’re switching between the two platforms, so keeping apps open or in memory when you switch sides could be feasible.
Such a device likely wouldn’t have enough RAM to keep tons of apps performing background duties at the same time on both platforms, so Samsung’s method commits one OS’s “state” to memory when you switch to the other. Upon returning, your phone’s state is fetched from the file and restored so you can continue the session.
But it’s a patent, and we should all know by now that patented ideas don’t necessarily always make it into product form. Samsung is trying, but even if they perfect this method and revolutionize dual-booting smartphones, they’ll still need Google and Microsoft’s blessing to do so.
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