Will Google’s Fuchsia OS Replace Android?

There’s a new operating system in the works at Google, dubbed Fuchsia. The next-gen OS first entered the public eye back in August on Github, but Ars Technica has discovered that it’s evolved considerably since then. While this may not be a full time project at Google just yet, what makes Fuchsia exciting is that it may be used to run the next generation of smartphones. Fuchsia developer Travis Geiselbrecht, for his part, announced that the nascent 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.”

Unlike Android and Chrome OS, Fuchsia isn’t based on Linux and uses an entirely different kernel, named “Magenta”, that Google built from the ground up. In developing its own microkernel, Google gains more leeway to define what its OS can do. And according to Google, Magenta is oriented toward “modern phones and modern personal computers with fast processors, non-trivial amounts of RAM with arbitrary peripherals doing open-ended computation.” Ars Technica speculates that Fuchsia may be a redo of Android that asks “how would we design Android today, if we could start over?”

This suggests that Fuchsia may not only grow to become a successor to Android, but something new that merges it with the desktop functionality of Chrome OS. There have been rumors that Google’s been making moves in this direction, CNBC notes, citing as evidence the fact that Google hasn’t invested much effort in developing Android for tablets. And as a matter of fact, images of Fuchsia show that it has elements of both Android and Chrome. Its Android-like home screen features empty spaces for widgets, whereas other screenshots display a Chrome-like tabbed interface that would allow users to toggle back and forth between apps with ease.

 

Perhaps Fuchsia will be the hybrid OS that Google’s next generation of smartphones, computers, and tablets run on, but any such transition away from Android would be difficult given that it is currently the world’s most popular OS.

Fuchsia is open source, and its apps are written in Google’s Flutter kit, which features a cross-platform that allows developers to create apps for both Android and iOS. Android apps written in Flutter could potentially run on Fuchsia, which would aid the transition considerably. But this is all speculation at this point. As screenshots of Fuchsia’s UI suggest, Google has invested a considerable amount of manpower into developing the OS, but it could also very well scrap the plan.

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