I've played with it some but I'm no professional here. I personally do consider it a major contender thanks to OSD335x SiP modules (although I haven't built an OSD335x, the deadbug demo intrigues me: https://octavosystems.com/2019/04/12/osd335x-c-sip-dead-bug/).
That being said I wouldn't recommend shipping an OMAP product in this day and age. Something with a MediaTek SOC is probably more palatable if you plan to spin up production at volume.
Oh, I see the confusion now. I didn't realize that Beagleboard was OMAP old.
I was talking about Beaglebone Black/Green, which is a 10-year-old design yes, but the AM335x line of Ti chips (while a decade old) seems well supported and working with mainline Linux.
Beaglebone Black/Green seems to be comparable to Rasp. Pi 1 or Rasp. Pi 2, though with far less power consumption, better documentation. I'm impressed by it, though I haven't made the leap into a custom design yet.
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But yeah, I guess I only became aware of Beaglebone around Beaglebone Black era / Sitara line. I always saw them as the "Industrial Rasp. Pi" if I wanted to reach for a more serious project, though I haven't really done any good electronics work back then. I'm doing a bit more of an electronics push these days again though.
I'm more interested in Beaglebone Black / Green because AM335x has 0.80mm pin pitch BGAs, which looks doable on OSHPark 6-layer 5mil trace/space.
More recent Beaglebone Play / AM625 has far superior specs (quadcore + CortexM4 onboard / etc. etc.), but 0.5mm trace is literally impossible at 5mil trace/space.
If you can get away with something low spec then you'll be fine, generally. Board bringup for any Cortex A8 or similar is comically easier than for lines ending in double digits.
I found Rockchip much easier to work with than TI, fwiw.
Because of better support from TI, BB always had a more professional feel than the Raspberry Pi, specially for documentation etc. It's a fine chip, if you can source it (haven't messed with anything from Octavo, but it seems solid to me). All the software issues are pretty much solved and upstreamed at this point.
I think the main advantage, for my hobbyist self at least, is the 0.80mm pitch BGA which is doable on OSHPark.
TI's more recent AM625 is 0.50mm pitch, which is too small for OSHPark 5mil trace/space, lol. Perhaps a bad reason to a professional but... I'm filtering out for chips that I can actually affordably make a PCB for on a hobbyist scale.
Old does not mean worse.
All of the extra gorp on newer chips takes a LOT more power.
For example, that 10-year-old chip runs Linux quite reliably in a 5V-500mA power envelope--something the RPI series never did.
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments...
The AM335x is clearly still a common chip today.
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Mouser also has 3000, 4000, 5000 in stock depending on SKU ( AM3357BZCZA80 vs AM3352BZCZA80). Easily 15,000+ at Mouser if you're not picky about the particular part in the series.
I think this is why the am335x and imx6 are still available, despite the am335x being older than the Raspberry Pi 1.
Of course, such chips are generally slower than flagship phone/tablet processors even at launch, and after 10-15 years even moreso.