Google’s Project Fuchsia – the long rumoured successor to Android – is alive and well and might even arrive on devices within three years, according to a new report.
Bloomberg sources within the Fuchsia team say Google has a team of over 100 engineers beavering away on the project. The goal? To create one operating system to run on all of Google’s hardware.
The Pixel phones, Home speakers, first and third-party Chromebook laptops, the Chromecast devices and other pieces of smart home tech would all – eventually – run on Fuchsia the sources say. Ultimately this would replace both Android and the Chrome OS within 5-years.
The report says:
According to one of the people, engineers have said they want to embed Fuchsia on connected home devices, such as voice-controlled speakers, within three years, then move on to larger machines such as laptops. Ultimately the team aspires to swap in their system for Android, the software that powers more than three quarters of the world’s smartphones, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. The aim is for this to happen in the next half decade, one person said.
However, there continues to be internal debate at Google over the plans for Fuchsia, which has a much greater focus on voice commands and frequent security updates, according to the report.
Related: Android P latest
The roadmap has not been agreed upon by Google CEO Sundar Pichai, despite the overriding drive towards AI services, according to the report. Fuchsia would allow Google’s consumer products to catch up to that vision, the report points out.
Apparently Pichai and his deputy Hiroshi Lockheimer are reluctant to upset the apple cart too much, because of the hundreds of hardware partners and thousands of developers who depend on Android and the Chrome OS in their current form.
Google has been on the record about Fuchsia without necessarily committing to using it for anything. A spokesperson told Bloomberg: “Google views these open-source experiments as an investment in innovation.”
It seems there’s a long road ahead for Fuchsia as Google looks towards the future of its operating systems. Would you back one OS to rule them all? Let us know @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
