It’s a miracle! Google has finally actually mentioned Fuchsia a few times during Google I/O… Without really saying much of anything at all. Head of Android and Chrome, Hiroshi Lockheimer, said during a live taping of The Vergecast:
“We’re looking at what a new take on an operating system could be like. And so I know out there people are getting pretty excited saying, ‘Oh this is the new Android,’ or, ‘This is the new Chrome OS,’” Lockheimer said. “Fuchsia is really not about that. Fuchsia is about just pushing the state of the art in terms of operating systems and things that we learn from Fuchsia we can incorporate into other products.”
He says the point of the experimental OS is to also experiment with different form factors, a hint toward the possibility that Fuchsia is designed to run on smart home devices, wearables, or possibly even augmented or virtual reality devices. “You know Android works really well on phones and and you know in the context of Chrome OS as a runtime for apps there. But Fuchsia may be optimized for certain other form factors as well. So we’re experimenting.”
That’s all still quite cryptic, and doesn’t really tell us anything at all. Still, it’s the first time Google has openly said anything about Fuchsia at all. Fuchsia also gets a short mention in a Google blog post about Flutter for the web, so maybe Google is finally going to be a bit more open about its plans for the operating system going forward.
Yeah, its an experimental OS. Which makes sense as Dart is involved. Its basically Google’s singularity. Cool,, but probably not going to make it into a real shipping device sold by google.
Google added/will add Android compatibility. Don’t fool yourself, the plan is to replace Android.
Don’t fool yourself indeed. There is no plan yet, only experimentation. The comparison with https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/singularity/ is entirely valid. Parts of the experiment might make it into the current codebase or some of the ideas/directions might be translated into the future underpinning for Android, but this is not an OS that is carefully planned and executed to replace Linux/AOSP in the next 36 months.