A new Bloomberg report surfaced today stating Google’s currently-in-development Fuchsia OS could one day take over a vast majority of the company’s products. In the report, it’s noted Google will introduce a smart speaker powered by the OS in an ambitious three years, while devices currently running Android or Chrome OS could get replaced by those running Fuchsia. It remains unclear when it all might unfold, but it is clear the company has plans for the software.
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.
According to Bloomberg, Google’s team at Fuchsia wants to create a single operating system that’s capable of running on all of the company’s in-house devices, including Pixel phones and speakers, as well as third-party gadgets. The timeline to roll out this new system seems a little rushed, which is why CEO Sundar Pichai and Android/Chrome OS head Hiroshi Lockheimer have yet to sign off on any roadmaps for the software.
Because of this, the future of Fuchsia remains unclear. There’s always a chance the project will succeed and eventually replace Chrome OS and Android, but that also means it could slip through the cracks and be scrapped altogether. For now, we’ll need to keep monitoring the situation and report back once we hear more from Google themselves.
