Fuchsia OS: A New Star is Born In Google’s Stellar Nursery

Google and Apple continue to wring the last decimal. But of course, there can only be one king in the jungle. Google’s Android mobile operating system (OS) grabbed a record market share of 65.19% surpassing Apple iOS share of 31% market share. While Apple is busy resizing its iPhones, Google is on the verge of launching its third operating system. And oh boy I am so excited. Been a fan of Google since I gained consciousness, Google is innovating since decades, and according to my view, this will continue for generations to come.

For now, Google has two operating system and with that Google holds the majority if the market share around the globe. And if Google keeps on innovating with such speed time is not far that it will make it even more impossible for competitors to reach the mark of excellence. There are rumors that Google is working on its third operating system and word is out that Google Fuchsia will itself outsmart the Android operating system. How cool is that? Here is a quick preview of Google Fuchsia that will blow your minds off.

Google, never considered jumping into the market with one product, and apparently it is was hard to work on the third operating system, right after Chrome OS and Android, but as they say ‘Consistency is the key’. Google’s new OS is named “Fuchsia”, the first occurrence of the operating system was felt back in August last year. And at that moment it was only a command line. But now the simple project turned out to be an exciting OS with a crazy interface that will sure to drive you insane. So, why wait. Let us start with the review.

What is new in Google Fuchsia?

First and foremost the best part of Google Fuchsia is that unlike Chrome OS and Android it is not Linux based. It uses a brand new technology developed by Google named as “Magenta”. With Google Fuchsia, Google is not only divorcing the Linux kernel, but also the General Public License (GPL): the Fuchsia will be licensed under BSD 3 clause, MIT, and Apache 2.0. Of course dumping Linux came as a shock to many, but the Android systems have surely thought it through to do what is right for the people.

Google describes Magenta as the operating system for the ‘modern phones and PC with fast processors, non-trivial amounts of RAM with absolute peripherals doing the open-ended computation.” For now, there is not any official announcement of the launch Google Fuchsia but we all are hoping for something that will surely cannibalize Google Chrome OS and Android.

Google Fuchsia interface is called “Armadillo”

It is impossible to talk about Google Fuchsia without first talking about the sideline projects that were running since a year. The main interface is coded using Google Flutter SDK, a project by Google that produces cross-platform code which runs on Android and iOS. Flutter SDK apps are coded in Dart, Google’s renewal of JavaScript, on mobile, which focus on high performance. For graphics, Google shifted to Vulkan-based graphics rendering by the name of “Esher” that contains a notably adds “Volumetric soft shadows” as one of its features, which in actual is Google’s custom-built interface design.

This brings us to an interesting turn. If Fuchsia interface is written in Flutter SDK, which is cross-platform. It concludes that one can put chunks of Google Fuchsia and use them in Android OS.

Google Fuchsia: The New interface

As soon as you download the source of Google Fuchsia and run on your Android you will be welcomed with an enticing new interface. A home screen along with the keyboard and what looks like a windows manager. Well to tell you the truth, it is just a placeholder kind of thing. Nothing will really work but you can enjoy the interface with your profile picture, date, time and battery icon. Here you will also see ‘recent apps’ which are named as ‘story’ and below that, if you scroll it you will see a new placeholder to place your apps. If you transit to any other screen you will notice a pop-up button of Fuchsia home screen, which is basically a white circle.

Google Fuchsia interface preview

You can move the cards on the screen to basically switch between several apps. You can even drop cards on top on one another to bring out some app in front. Apps will transit with a split effect which is really cool.

You can play with the screen by splitting it a vertical or horizontal interface. You can either split it in 50/50 split, both horizontally or vertically, you can even split the screen in 50/50 split that will give the screen a full height. You can further split the screen in likability of your mood.

What is the future of Google Fuchsia?

With Google innovating at the speed of light, it is early to say that how grand Google is willing to go with Fuchsia. As per the spokesman of Google Fuchsia, ‘the project is not a toy, nor is a 20% project, it is something grand.’

The hardest part is not the development of the OS, it is a transition from Android, which has grown itself as the most popular OS in the past decade. Of course, Google has a charm that automatically forces the users to shift without questioning the credibility of Google. Google made a promise to launch an Android Runtime work environment that will work on non-Android platforms and with Chrome OS, so if Google does choose to go through with a transition plan, perhaps it could port and entire Android stack over to Fuchsia as a stop-gap app solution.

To conclude it all

Back in August when Google Fuchsia went public, Geiselbrecht made it public that “The Magenta project [started] about 6 months ago now” which would be somewhere around February 2016. For Android which hung inside Google for about 5 years before the initial launch. But with today’s market, I think it will take less time to reach more audience. If Fuchsia follows a similar path, and everything goes well, maybe we can expect a consumer product sometime around 2020. Then again this is Google, so it could all be canceled before it ever sees the light of day. Fuchsia has a long road ahead of it.

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