“Android is reaching EOL in the next 4-5 years”
twitter.com
twitter.com
A word of warning is that still developer-only, not ready for real use. (Even my Replicant devices are much more functional than my PostmarketOS ones, at the moment, but PostmarketOS is a much better idea.)
- Hardware is not very modular (mainly because of size constraints), meaning you have to purpose-build libre hardware if you can't/don't want to run on tech-giant devices (you can right now if you're forking Android; you probably won't be able to once it's replaced with Fuschia).
- Developers' needs have always been a bastion for keeping desktop OSes flexible and open. No matter how closed-down software gets, someone somewhere has to be able to muck with it so as to build and improve it in the first place. This doesn't apply to mobile OSes; people don't use them for development.
Not that it's impossible for these things to be overcome, but it's a much steeper uphill battle.
Maybe you're okay with going back to the iPhone 1.0 days where a smartphone was just for phone calls, texting, email, a calendar, listening to music, looking up directions, and searching the web. But while you might get an mp3 player app, many people no longer own copies of their music and you won't get Pandora or Spotify. You certainly won't have a decent maps app - maps are one of the most heavily monopolized core features of today's phones, mainly because of the sheer size of the task of mapping the world. OpenStreetMap exists, but it's honestly not very good.
You start to see the problem.
I used an Android fork for about a year without any Google services before I gave up. I was able to grab a few crucial apps from APKMirror, but not many. I tried using OsmAnd for maps; it was awful. I once bought a pair of headphones I literally couldn't use without the app - available only on the App Store and Play Store. I used web apps to fill in some of the gaps; they were spotty and many were ugly and/or slow and/or didn't hook into APIs like push notifications. At least I had a fully up-to-date Chrome fork to use as my browser.
Maybe after the death of Android there would be greater momentum behind building and sustaining this kind of ecosystem. That would help bolster not only app development, but possibly even the value of the open web, and maybe even the contributions to (and therefore quality of) things like OpenStreetMap. It's hard to say.
The "app ecosystem" on a free mobile OS would be shared with the "ecosystem" of free PC apps. Chromium does target, e.g. Debian GNU/Linux, as do quite a few proprietary apps relying on Flatpack. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to piggiback on this work for the mobile platform. Yes, UI is different, but not that different. Modern Linux apps already come with a touch-friendly UI, for example.
That said, because of the way Google APIs have extended their tentacles into non-Google Android apps, many of them cease to function without Google Services installed. So you'd still have most of the app ecosystem problem.
Smartphones are far, far more about communication and collaboration than passive content consumption. 'Functioning' in our digital society isn't about everyone individually watching the same movies on a 5" screen on the bus. Most people use their phones as a glossier smartphone with navigation capability and that's just fine.
You use Netflix as a stand-in for all "commercial services". The majority of smartphone users in the world may not have Netflix on their phones, but the majority of Americans - the largest market by value - do. And more importantly, I guarantee you that the vast majority of smartphone users worldwide regularly use Facebook and/or WhatsApp. Those are commercial services. I personally have trouble staying in the loop at work without Slack on my phone. That's a commercial service. Plenty of mobile, commercial services are truly essential to modern life. Singling out Netflix is a straw-man.
Maybe Americans are the largest market by value. Are they larger than the sum of all other markets, though? Will they be in 5 years? What about 10?
Regarding WhatsApp and Facebook, let's just remind ourselves they did not exist ~10 years ago. Any argument based on their size should only serve to remind us that such a dramatic change is possible over a period of 10 years.
This may be an unpopular statement here but where do you think Linux comes from?
Corporations.
It's Open Source but the vast vast vast majority of funding comes from IBM, Google, etc.
^ This is what I was speaking to. This holds for Android.
Furthermore, android really wasn't built to be easy for individuals to work on. Compare compiling and modifying Linux to compiling and modifying android. I've done the first but I don't think I've ever even finished downloading the source (tens to hundreds of gigabytes) to even start with the second.
People don’t need anything, most of them just suck it up and deal with it. On Android this means throwing out phones and getting new ones every few years.
https://medium.com/@bfrancis/the-story-of-firefox-os-cb5bf79... https://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-death-of-the-firefox-phone...
What do you guys think about Purism's smartphone built with PureOS https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ ?
1) Pixels move to Fuchsia, native apps are in Dart/Flutter, compatibility layer for Android. Fuchsia becomes a distinguishing feature of Googles hardware, and allows Google to differentiate vs Android competitors.
2) Google continues to support Android, but only as it affects their business interests (as a funnel for search).
3) Google migrates some service level functionality away from Android and Pixels become a first-class citizen in Google's ecosystem. In my mind, Fuchsia is a direct result of Google's newfound interest in hardware (as a business). I imagine the following:
- Google sees voice (and maybe AR) as the next frontier, which is actually an existential threat for them--they are harder to monetize via ads.
- Google decides to start making hardware (for profit), to monetize their services (a la Apple). That is, their Voice Assistant is now differentiated from Android, and to use that service, you have to buy their hardware. Now, they don't need to make money on ads for voice searches.
- Google will continue to roll out more ML-driven services that are exclusive to their hardware, and eventually, exclusive to Fuchsia. This will allow them to both a) further differentiate their hardware from other Android manufacturers, b) better monetize their services (effectively through HW purchases), and c) steal market share of the most valuable customers from Apple.
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16568275#16569138
--
[0] https://www.xda-developers.com/android-q-apex-biggest-thing-...
[1] https://developer.android.com/preview/gsi-release-notes
[2] mirror: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1119206658423558144.html
Yep, he follows on with:
"About Fuchsia replacing Android, it's not a secret I leaked lol"
then...
"Also, do keep in mind how Google sometimes randomly kills projects, and starts new ones, nothing is set in stone with Google."
Edit more: From my research she is someone who has legitimately worked on an Android OS derivative, but it was at another company (Sky TV?). So she's both an Android OS Dev and a non-Google employee. Her source for Android's EOL is the articles she links in the twitter conversation.
She has done nothing wrong but many people seem to have misinterpreted this as a Googler saying Android is EOL.
[0] https://twitter.com/DroidAlexandra/status/111934958407192985...
The articles that she linked to were old ones which have a note saying that Google denied that the speculations were true. And herself said in a later tweet that she was "putting things together" and that "5 years is a long time".
And also, "Also, do keep in mind how Google sometimes randomly kills projects, and starts new ones, nothing is set in stone with Google."[1]
[1] https://twitter.com/DroidAlexandra/status/111934632486704332...
Sounds like a poseur trolling for Twitter followers to me....
Anyone who works at a BigCo knows there's no way in hell anyone's made a decision about something 5 years out. There's a lot of risky dev between here and there
I think they meant to suggest Fuchsia could replace the Linux kernel in that timeframe
If somebody with a modicum of common sense and software experience says some software of this kind of complexity that they're working on "can" be good enough in 5 years that basically means: it's a herculean task, and they have no clue whatsoever as to how long it's actually going to take. Also, they probably don't really know what they're really trying to do, only general aims, not actually how they're achievable.
There's no way in hell anybody can plan something that novel and hugely complex, with that many people involved in an ecosystem that's constantly changing not to mention a business that's not known for its long term perseverance, with any kind of accuracy for 1 year. 5 years is a complete joke.
Who knows - it might happen. It might in just 1 year. Or maybe 50. Or more likely, never. But I cannot believe that estimate to have any kind of sane grounding.
The only way they're actually going to follow through on a schedule that long term is by giving up on scope and quality, which is to say - sure, something will be delivered, but perhaps nothing resembling today's expectations.
:-)
Edit: ah an Android OS dev. I imagine that's a primary party to Android and therefore this individual is kind of an authority.
Fuschia will let them release a fully closed down platform.
Which is to say Fuchsia may not be closed source, but a lot of devices built on it probably will be.
They still provide the binary drivers/firmware from upstream because there's no replacement for those.
The nice thing about copyleft is that it’s infectious.
So you now basically have full control and can make nigh arbitrary modifications to both user and kernel space while only having to show the source of the kernel itself. Not super powerful in practice. Pretty deal for the kernel devs though.
Sure they can add binary blobs, but they do that already with android.
Not that i trust google, because i don't ;)
She is in the wide sense of the term: she has made some contributions to AOSP. But only Google has actual knowledge of the future of their OS, and she doesn't work for them.
See also: Windows has actually replaced their Win32 app model with UWP which is nearly a whole different app platform, but they still support Win32 apps and have made it increasingly easier to deploy Win32 apps on UWP-based platforms.
And I personally haven't seen anybody use Android apps on ChromeOS.
This is wishful thinking on Microsoft's part.
> they still support Win32 apps
Because it is despite their best efforts more popular and more important. So it cannot be said that they "replaced" it.
1. The large body of win32 code already written, maybe exceeds the quantity of future UWP apps.
2. The quality gap between what you can write with new and old stuff.
Maybe they have closed 2, I stopped paying attention a few years ago. But last I knew there was a bit of a chicken-egg problem where nothing substantial was being written with the new thing, thus no means for it to be validated and improve.
Also there is the general problem that 21st century Microsoft cannot compete with Windows NT. Can a new UI framework from Microsoft ever outdo the old stuff? Debatable. There have been several attempts.
On the other hand, they can completely replace the underlying OS just like Windows NT and OS X did. That seems possible to me.
It's not like all Android phones will just cease to exist when Fuchsia comes out. So even if this is done near flawlessly (chances of which are slim given how different Fuchsia promises to be), Google would be expanding the already insane Android testing matrix for devs.
Can anyone still access? Can anyone throw this in the WayBack Machine?
Even if they do: I could see a ton of smartphone brands continuing to maintain it for their own smart phones (the Chinese have been big on that front!) or even making their own OS like Samsung with their Tizen OS.
Without shipments, it’s just yet another obsolete mobile OS.
My understanding is that it will be a pretty much transparent switch for users going from an Android phone to a Fuschia phone -- not sure though.
Fuschia is the OS and kernel nobody asked for which is licensed so that Google and partners can make locked down, closed source phones.
Android uses a monolithic kernel via Linux, and as a result has weaknesses that have surfaced over time due to ecosystem and compatibility bloat. Long story short: Android upgrades are often dependent on the manufacturer distributing updates that account for their unique devices. And that's both difficult to manage and shortens the lives of the phones people use. Hence why so many Android phones stop getting updated after only a couple of years. (Apple doesn't have this problem because it controls the ecosystem of devices.)
Fuschia, on the other hand, is based on a microkernel, which simplifies the stack, making it easier to push the phone's underlying operating system to a newer version while allowing the complexities that come with there being dozens of phones (and laptops and tablets) to support. Everything is a service in a microkernel. Given the complexity of having to support so many different kinds of devices in the current ecosystem, moving everything to a service makes a lot of sense as it would remove the compatibility complications.
Google taking its mobile operating systems and pushing them into a monolithic kernel, licensing concerns aside, helps solve a big ecosystem problem that has only grown for Android over the years. It limits functionality in older phones and when developers fail to support these devices, it creates unnecessary electronic waste.
This approach would conceivably separate the underlying OS from vendor support. That is something a widely used mobile OS would benefit from.
In Fuchsia apps are collaborative by nature as the OS itself manages the user. Apps get to fill slots in story lines and so can be a seamless part of a bigger task, which can involve online resources. Along with a better user experience, app sizes might well go down 80%.
If successfully executed, it represents a paradigm shift reminiscent of the transition from DOS to Windows: it becomes much easier to realize a engaging and satisfying user experience.
It is a bit strange that a search engine company would choose a name that’s so difficult to spell!
According to Wikipedia total Alphabet assets are around $232B, and Xiaomi's are around $21.6B (ie. ~10% of Google's total net worth). Xiaomi was founded in 2010. Google was founded in 1998.
This is an excellent reason why Google shouldn't ditch the name "Android". It's easy to pronounce and globally recognized. Every time I see the word "fuschia" I have to think "wait how is it pronounced again?"
I don't care if they change the OS under the hood, but if anybody in Google is planning to sell a "Fuschia-based phone", they're pissing on their own brand.
Obviously it's not a necessity, like food/water/shelter, but even some homeless people with nothing else have cellphones.
I feel going back to very tech light, very local might be a very plausible future. Maybe phones but not as a platform for life through digital pipe metaphor
different and deeper education, more trustworthy next door social tissue, slower pace
I do agree with you that we would be better off with less tech, but it would be hard for me at least since I love it so much. Although I do stay away from social media (unless you count the occasional HN post) which I think does more bad than good.