Google has been teasing the tech enthusiast public with its experimental Fuchsia OS, but things are now turning serious, as the Fuchsia OS developer site goes live.
Android Police was the first to spot the developer site that comes with little new information and seems to be a copy and paste of what was previously available through Fuchsia Git. The new Fuchsia developer site has a code of conduct for participants, a section on how to get started with Fuchsia, and instructions regarding building and testing Fuchsia apps.
What can be known about Fuchsia at this point is that it is not based on Linux, found to be one of the world’s most important platforms. Fuchsia is going against Google’s trend to use Linux, as the search engine giant and Android owner uses Linux for all its other mobile platforms.
In 2017, Google dropped Linux Core support for Fuchsia and developed its own microkernel for the OS called Flutter. Fuchsia also runs on Dart, Google’s JavaScript replacement Along with the drop of Linux Core for Fuchsia, Google gave the OS a new UI reflective of its Material Design language. At this time, Fuchsia could be downloaded onto even Android devices. Fuchsia is designed for multitasking, with resizable windows and split-screen capability, and utilizes Google’s own Escher graphics.
One of the benefits of Fuchsia is that it is a multitasking platform with a lot of power that doesn’t mandate the use of a lot of resources to accomplish hard tasks. This has been something of an issue with Android, as Android has utilized a lot of battery power on mobile devices to run all its multitasking operations.
Google has seen its share of headache with battery life on its platform, coming up with a few ways to save battery life, including a Doze Mode that then had a “Deeper Doze” mode added to it to ensure better battery life. Finally, Google just recently admitted that a systemwide Dark Mode would help conserve more battery life for devices, a sign that the two Doze modes presented aren’t doing enough on the battery front.
Fuchsia is not only powerful for multitasking and split-screen, but it also could allow iOS apps to be easily ported onto the platform. Google’s fork of Apple’s Swift language to replace the legendary Objective C has been given Fuchsia support, which would make it easy for both Android and iOS developers to create apps for the platform. Earlier this year, it was confirmed via AOSP code that Fuchsia will run Android applications via Android Runtime.
Fuchsia OS has been tested on a Google Pixelbook and given official Pixelbook support as of January 2018. Alongside of Pixelbook support, Google has been testing out a YouTube Player for Fuchsia. Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC is the first mobile SoC that has taken Fuchsia for a test run.
Fuschia OS is available for download, as its APK file surfaced in 2017. The same microkernel used for Fuchsia’s core is said to be headed to AMD Chromebooks in the future.
Fuchsia OS first appeared in a GitHub project back in August 2016, where Google’s description said “Pink + Purple = Fuchsia (a new Operating System).” It is said that Fuchsia could replace Android in five years.