Can Google afford to kill off Android? That’s what the company is reportedly deciding.
It’s no secret that Google has been quietly working on Fuchsia, a new experimental operating system for tablets and phones.
Here’s the secret, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday: Fuchsia could replace Android and Chrome OS within the next five years.
Mind you, that’s just the ambition, according to the report. There’s apparently no concrete plan in place, as Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Android/Chrome boss Hiroshi Lockheimer reportedly have yet to sign off on a roadmap. But it’s serious enough that noted Android user experience designer Matias Duarte is reportedly working at least part-time on the project.
The idea is to start small by bringing Fuchsia to smart home devices like the Google Home smart speaker first, then move on to laptops and eventually phones, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
It could be a way for Google to build a single operating system across phones, tablets and PCs ( Google has been dreaming of that for years); a way to avoid future lawsuits with Oracle (since Fuchsia isn’t based on the same code as Android); and a way for Google to address the Android fragmentation problem (users can’t count on their phones to have the same features) that’s dogged Google for many years .
But it’s not going to be easy to just ditch Android, and one of Bloomberg’s sources actually suggests the company may not be that serious about the idea — calling it a “senior-engineer retention project” designed to keep Google’s talent busy so they don’t go and join rival companies.
Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.