There has been quite a bit of news surrounding Google products of late, and that shouldn’t be surprising given that their event is coming up next Tuesday. That said, one of the biggest rumors and potentially the most exciting are the details revolving around Andromeda, which is said to be a completely new operating system for devices. In a slew of new rumors today, bits and pieces about Google’s goals for Andromeda and what devices it’s meant for have hit the web, including a detail that states Google’s supposed long-term goal is “move away from Android” and use Andromeda as their OS, in that Andromeda is meant to be for all device platforms, I.E. mobile, laptops, tablets, etc., similar to the way that Microsoft has done with Windows 10. This somewhat makes sense if you consider the previous rumors that Google has plans to launch a Huawei-made tablet as well as a third-generation of the Chromebook Pixel both running on the software.
While this is still just a rumor, it’s a potentially massive change that is being set underway as Android is currently the world’s largest and most popular mobile platform, and a move away from it could mean tons of changes are on the horizon. Having said that, the rumor states that this is the “long-term” goal, so this isn’t something that Google would likely be implementing any time soon. What they could end up doing is starting small, however, by introducing a device here and a device there that run on Andromeda. Again, though, this could be quite a ways off, as the rumors also state that there is no guarantee that Google will show Andromeda off at their event next week, and devices could be at least a year away.
When details of Andromeda first broke, it was stated that the software was being tested on a Nexus 9 tablet, but Google apparently has no plans to make Andromeda backwards compatible with most older devices, including the Nexus 9. This doesn’t mean that it won’t be backwards compatible with any old devices, as there are likely to be many devices considered older between now and the time that Andromeda is ready for a release, but there is no way to know for sure until Google themselves confirm what their plans are. Google is said to have a vision for Andromeda as being much more heavily cloud-based than Android, and that they want users to be more integrated with their cloud services, with Andromeda being a vessel for them to deliver this type of a more cloud-connected operating system. Andromeda is also rumored to amp up the capabilities of Allo, making it much more akin to the functions of iMessage on the iOS platform, which would essentially make it more robust than it is in its current state. Lastly, Andromeda may not be the name that Google uses for the OS by the time it’s ready to reach public hands, and could just be an internal moniker. This wouldn’t be too shocking as Google does this with many of its products.