Phones Google’s “Fuchsia” NEW smartphone OS

[Tig Bitties]

WOW THIS IS HUGE NEWS !!!
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/googles-fuchsia-smartphone-os-dumps-linux-has-a-wild-new-ui/

Google, never one to compete in a market with a single product, is apparently hard at work on a third operating system after Android and Chrome OS. This one is an open source, real-time OS called "Fuchsia." The OS first popped up in August last year, but back then it was just a command line. Now the mysterious project has a crazy new UI we can look at, so let's dive in.

A long road ahead
With any new project at Google, it's hard to know what the scale of the project will be. Is this a "20 percent" project that will be forgotten about in a year or something more important? Luckily, we have a direct statement from a Fuchsia developer on the matter. In the public Fuchsia IRC channel, Fuchsia developer Travis Geiselbrecht told the chat room the OS "isn't a toy thing, it's not a 20% project, it's not a dumping ground of a dead thing that we don't care about anymore."

 

[mi7chy]

Reads more like a prank beginning with the name Fuchsia (look it up on urban dictionary).

 

[nviz22]

Hard to tell if Google is working on Fuchsia as its future OS or if "Andromeda" will link Chrome + Android together?

 

[v0lume4]

Perhaps the long term plan for this OS will be to replace Android?

From the article:
Fuchsia really seems like a project that asks "how would we design Android today, if we could start over?" It's a brand-new, Google-developed kernel running a brand-new, Google-developed SDK that uses a brand-new, Google-developed programming language and it's all geared to run Google's Material Design interface as quickly as possible. Google gets to dump Linux and the GPL, it can dump Java and the problems it caused with Oracle, and Google can basically insulate itself from all of Android's upstream projects and bring all the development in-house.

I'll keep an eye on this -- thank you for the post.

 

[Tig Bitties]

I could totally see this eventually becoming the new Android like by Q or R release. And start off first on the Pixel 4 phone in 2019

 

[v0lume4]

Question is, how do they transfer over the ecosystem that they've already built with Android? All the apps on the play store, all of the third party support, etc. Emulating? Obviously the long term goal would be to get native apps. I'm not a programmer so I'm not sure how drastic of a change a new OS would be for devs -- new SDK's, API's, and all that.

 

[unlinked]

When I read that article my first thought was "so many projects for Google to abandon at a moments notice".

 

[M5RahuL]

Fuchsia reminds me of Punani or Punany !!! Don't ask why lol..

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=punany

 

[Michael Goff]

Question is, how do they transfer over the ecosystem that they've already built with Android? All the apps on the play store, all of the third party support, etc. Emulating? Obviously the long term goal would be to get native apps. I'm not a programmer so I'm not sure how drastic of a change a new OS would be for devs -- new SDK's, API's, and all that.

They could make an entirely new OS but still have it natively run .apk files. I'd imagine the point would be to fix the update problem somehow.

 

[Tinmania]

When I read that article my first thought was "so many projects for Google to abandon at a moments notice".

Same here. Android TV dieing on the vine (or not depending on the next supposed update--but who knows), Android Wear's lack of love, the messaging platform of the week.... ugh.

Just recently I got Assistant forced on me, and it was already on my watch. No longer can I add items to my Grocery, Home, etc., lists in Google Keep. Keep has been fired from that task and replaced by the brand new "Google Assistant Shopping List." And that is the only list you get--talk about a step backwards. AND this is due to Google's new Express shopping service, so you can presumably order items from your shopping list from Google. Double ugh.



Mike

 

[tbayrgs]

Same here. Android TV dieing on the vine (or not depending on the next supposed update--but who knows), Android Wear's lack of love, the messaging platform of the week.... ugh.

Just recently I got Assistant forced on me, and it was already on my watch. No longer can I add items to my Grocery, Home, etc., lists in Google Keep. Keep has been fired from that task and replaced by the brand new "Google Assistant Shopping List." And that is the only list you get--talk about a step backwards. AND this is due to Google's new Express shopping service, so you can presumably order items from your shopping list from Google. Double ugh.



Mike

I hear ya. As silly as it may sound to some, this very specific functionality on its own is one of the key reasons why I can't switch back. I tell Siri to add XYZ to whatever list I have in Reminders via my Apple Watch all day long. My preferred grocery list app is iOS only and automatically imports items from my Grocery List in reminders so with simple voice commands, I manage a few different lists that are shared to both my wife and I. Using Keep was a passable replacement on Android but when Google made this change in Assistant recently, pretty much sealed the deal on me not switching to Android anytime soon.

I do love my Shield TV though so Google better not let yet another TV platform die a neglected death.

 

[JaySoul]

I think it's probably a good shout for them to develop a back up plan to Android.

Even if it never comes out or dies in 2 years behind closed doors, I'm sure they would learn some valuable lessons which could in turn be incorporated into Andromeda or Android etc.

 

[Michael Goff]

Just imagine it. We've had the modern Smartphone OS for the past ten years and this could turn into a summary of everything a mobile OS should be. Or maybe not.