Google has updated a mobile framework that targets Android, iOS, and the in-development Google Fuchsia OS:
On Wednesday, Google's cross-platform mobile framework Flutter reached Preview Release 1, a designation that places the code somewhere between buggy beta and less buggy 1.0.
"The shift from beta to release preview signals our confidence in the stability and quality of what we have, and our focus on bug fixing and stabilization," said Google group product manager Tim Sneath in a blog post.
Introduced in May 2017, Flutter provides a way for Linux, macOS and Windows developers to create mobile apps in the Dart programming language that can run on Android, iOS or Google Fuchsia, an operating system that Google is working on.
Apps would be bundled with the Flutter engine:
Flutter is Google's second swing at a mobile SDK (the first being a little platform called "Android"). Flutter's claim to fame is that it's cross-platform—Flutter apps run on Android and iOS—and it's really fast. Flutter apps sidestep the app platforms of Android and iOS and instead run on the Flutter rendering engine (written in C++) and Flutter framework (written in Google's Dart language, just like Flutter apps). When it's time to ship a Flutter app off to Google's and Apple's respective app stores, the requisite Flutter engine code gets bundled up with the app code, and the Flutter SDK spits out Android and iOS versions of your single code base. Each version comes complete with built-in app themes for Android or iOS, so they still feel like native apps. Along with Android and iOS, Flutter is also the platform used for apps in Google's experimental Fuchsia OS.
Related: Google's New Non-Linux OS: Fuchsia
Google's Not-So-Secret New OS
Google Fuchsia UI Previewed
Google to Add Swift Language Support to Fuchsia OS
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Google is designing a new operating system (also at Github) based on its own new kernel (Magenta), which may be intended to unify/replace Android and ChromeOS. It is also expected to run on a wide range of ARM and x64 devices, such as Chromecast, Raspberry Pi 3, smartphones, laptops, and desktops.
TechSpecs Blog ponders:
I decided to dig through open source to examine the state of Google's upcoming Andromeda OS. For anyone unfamiliar, Andromeda seems to be the replacement for both Android and Chrome OS (cue endless debates over the semantics of that, and what it all entails). Fuchsia is the actual name of the operating system, while Magenta is the name of the kernel, or more correctly, the microkernel. Many of the architectural design decisions appear to have unsurprisingly been focused on creating a highly scalable platform.
It goes without saying that Google isn't trying to hide Fuchsia. People have clearly discovered that Google is replacing Android's Linux kernel. Still, I thought it would be interesting for people to get a better sense of what the OS actually is. This article is only intended to be an overview of the basics, as far as I can comment reasonably competently. (I certainly never took an operating systems class!)
To my naive eyes, rather than saying Chrome OS is being merged into Android, it looks more like Android and Chrome OS are both being merged into Fuchsia. It's worth noting that these operating systems had previously already begun to merge together to an extent, such as when the Android team worked with the Chrome OS team in order to bring Update Engine to Nougat, which introduced A/B updates to the platform.
Google is unsurprisingly bringing up Andromeda on a number of platforms, including the humble Intel NUC. ARM, x86, and MIPS bring-up is exactly what you would expect for an Android successor, and it also seems clear that this platform will run on Intel laptops.
Google's Fuchsia System UI can now be previewed. The operating system could potentially replace Android and even ChromeOS:
Google, never one to compete in a market with a single product, is apparently hard at work on a third operating system after Android and Chrome OS. This one is an open source, real-time OS called "Fuchsia." The OS first popped up in August last year, but back then it was just a command line. Now the mysterious project has a crazy new UI we can look at, so let's dive in.
Unlike Android and Chrome OS, Fuchsia is not based on Linux—it uses a new, Google-developed microkernel called "Magenta." With Fuchsia, Google would not only be dumping the Linux kernel, but also the GPL: the OS is licensed under a mix of BSD 3 clause, MIT, and Apache 2.0. Dumping Linux might come as a bit of a shock, but the Android ecosystem seems to have no desire to keep up with upstream Linux releases. Even the Google Pixel is still stuck on Linux Kernel 3.18, which was first released at the end of 2014.
[...] This all leads us to an interesting point right now: the Fuchsia interface is written with the Flutter SDK, which is cross-platform. This means that, right now, you can grab chunks of Fuchsia and run it on an Android device. Fuchsia first went public in August 2016, and but back then compiling it would get you nothing more than a command line. Thanks to Hotfixit.net for pointing out that the Fuchsia System UI, called "Armadillo" is actually pretty interesting now.
It's possible to download the source and compile Fuchsia's System UI into an Android APK and install it on an Android device. It consists of a wild reimagining of a home screen along with a keyboard, a home button, and (kind of) a window manager. Nothing really "works"—it's all a bunch of placeholder interfaces that don't do anything. There's also a great readme in the Fuchsia source that describes what the heck is going on.
It's about time for Linux Torvalds' domination of the smartphone industry to end.
Also at BGR, ZDNet, ComputerWorld, and The Register. Preview video.
Google will contribute changes to Apple's Swift programming language, and will support the language in the Fuchsia OS, a presumed replacement for Android, ChromeOS, etc. that is designed to work on all devices:
Fuchsia is Google's not-at-all-but-kind-of-secret operating system that's being developed in the open, but with almost zero official messaging about what it's for, or what it's built to replace. (Android? Chrome OS? Both? Neither?) The operating system's core is written in mostly C and C++, with Dart for the default "Flutter" UI, but other languages like Go, Rust, Python, and now Swift have also found a home in the project.
Of course, just because you'll be able to compile Swift to run on Fuchsia doesn't mean you'll be able to instantly port any iOS app to Google's new OS when or if it ships. While Apple has open sourced the Swift language itself, much of the iOS platform (like the UI stuff, for instance) is closed source, so code that relies on those closed Apple libraries won't be portable.
One possible future in a world where Fuchsia is an important and relevant platform for apps is that you write the "core logic" of your app in your language of choice — Swift, Go, Rust, JavaScript, etc. — and then you build a custom UI for each platform — Android, iOS, Fuchsia, Linux, Windows, the web — using the appropriate tools for each.
Also at Android Police.
Previously: Google's New Non-Linux OS: Fuchsia
Google's Not-So-Secret New OS
Google Fuchsia UI Previewed
Google is officially releasing its Fuchsia OS, starting w/ first-gen Nest Hub
Google's long-in-development, from-scratch operating system, Fuchsia, is now running on real Made by Google devices, namely, the first-generation Nest Hub.
Google has told us that as of today, an update is beginning to roll out to owners of the first-generation Nest Hub, first released in 2018. For all intents and purposes, this update will not change any of the functionality of the Nest Hub, but under the hood, the smart display will be running Fuchsia OS instead of the Linux-based "Cast OS" it used before. In fact, your experience with the Nest Hub should be essentially identical. This is possible because Google's smart display experience is built with Flutter, which is designed to consistently bring apps to multiple platforms, Fuchsia included.
We've been tracking the development of Fuchsia since 2016, starting from an ambitious experimental UI, to running on Google's many internal testing devices for Fuchsia, ranging the full gamut of Google's smart home and Chromebook lineup. In the time since then, the OS has gradually progressed and recently even begun a steady release schedule.
Also at The Verge and Notebookcheck.
Previously:
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:41AM (5 children)
Until they lose interest and cancel it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by kaganar on Saturday June 23 2018, @02:33AM (4 children)
I think that viewpoint might be a little hasty.
It might be a terrible project!
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:01AM (3 children)
And then, they won't cancel it? So much for "Don't be evil."
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:12AM (2 children)
I keep hoping that Google will somehow find some brass and bring out an OS to knock on MS. Android and Chromium where oh so close, but they never put out an global image that one could just download and kick out boring old MS.
I've been watching Fuchsia, but so far it has not amounted to anything.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:16AM
I should mention that I am not interested in producing apps. I just want a clean OS that works.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:29AM
https://www.google.com/search?q=+market+share+chromeos [google.com]
ChromeOS is doing alright, but it can't do what a Windows machine can and is usually found on low-end devices.
ChromeOS can now run Android and possibly Linux applications, which could broaden what it can do.
Nobody is going to game on ChromeOS + low specs. Meanwhile, SteamOS still exists but is struggling. Maybe there is an opportunity there.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:24PM
In other words, a gamma version.
In my days, people would write code. While the code was a work in progress, any distribution would be an alpha version. When the program was feature complete and debugged as much as it could be debugged by the persons that wrote the code, testers would receive beta versions, to discover the real bugs. Occasionally, a gamma version would be produced, to discover even more bugs. After testing, version 1.0 would be released to the public, who would always find a few more bugs, leading to version 1.1, which would be the best version of the program ever, as the next versions would be ruined by feature creep. If a program was updated dramatically (e.g., new program engine or tons of new features), version 2.0 would be produced, with version 2.1 again being the best release of version 2.
These days, incomplete alpha versions are distributed as beta versions, and buggy beta versions are distributed as "release candidates", which they most certainly are not, as development roadmaps often indicate that more than one such release candidate is scheduled to be released. (E.g., LibreOffice usually schedules the release of RC1 and RC2 versions, which should really be called beta and gamma.) As for versioning, we usually get streams of three or more numbers, separated by dots, where often the only significant numbers are the two last, with the other numbers rarely, if ever changing (e.g., Linux 2.6.x.y) or changing arbitrarily (e.g., Linux 2.6.x.y→3.x.y or 3.x.y→4.x.y) without any real reason for a version bump other than aesthetics. We even get programs which are stuck at version 0.x.y forever, even though they are very stable and reliable. On my computer, e.g., more than 17% of installed packages are at version 0. I guess their version will be bumped to 1 only when the mythical last bug has been fixed.
My lawn is staying at version 1.1, so get off it!