Goodbye Android? Rumors that Samsung will switch from Android to 'fuchsia' OS in the future

　Almost all terminals of the "Galaxy" series, the world's largest smartphone manufactured and sold by Samsung Electronics, run Android customized by Samsung. However, it seems that Samsung may switch to a new OS in the future.

　Leaker Dohyun Kim posted on his Twitter account that Samsung is leaving Android. There is a possibility of moving to a new OS called "Fuchsia" in the future. In addition, Mr. Ice universe, a famous leaker, also responded "Yes" to this post, which seems to be more credible information.

　In addition, the correct reading of this OS in Japanese is unknown. It seems to be read as "fuchsia" in English pronunciation, and "fuchsia" or "fukusha" in Japanese. The Japanese notation in this article is tentatively unified to "Fuchsia", which is the easiest to write.

Index 

• 1 Outline of “Fuchsia”
• 2 Fuchsia app development kit "Flutter"
• 3 Gradual migration from Android to "Fuchsia"?
• 4Samsung 's proprietary OS has been around for a long time
• 5 The future of Android
• 6 Summary

Overview of "Fuchsia"

 　The history of Fuchsia OS dates back to about five years ago, when Google announced it as a new project on GitHub in 2016.

 At the time of publication, Google did not officially announce it, so many media predicted that it would be the OS that will replace Android in the future . Subsequent investigations revealed that this OS could operate on a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, personal computers, and embedded devices such as home appliances.

　First of all, this "Fuchsia" is fundamentally different from Android in the kernel that mediates information transmission and processing between hardware and software. It is , so to speak, the central part of the OS .

　Android uses the Linux kernel, while Fuchsia uses Google's own Zircon.

　Currently, the most conspicuous device adopting the "Fuchsia" OS is Google's smart display "Nest Hub". The original Nest Hub was updated in May 2021, replacing Cast OS with Fuchsia OS. It's the first time that "fuchsia" has been used in a device released by Google, and this adoption has further spread rumors about fuchsia.

Fuchsia app development kit "Flutter"

　Fuchsia app development uses a software development kit (SDK) called Flutter from Google. The best feature of this Flutter is that it is possible to develop applications compatible with different OS such as iOS and Android with a program written in one language .

　There are currently two types of mobile application development, one is native development and the other is called cross-platform development. In native development, applications are developed in languages ​​optimized for each environment of iOS and Android. Recently, languages ​​such as Swift for iOS and Kotlin for Android are often used. Therefore, it is necessary to learn two languages ​​in order to natively develop apps for both iOS and Android. In cross-platform development, on the other hand, it is possible to create applications that support both OSs in one language. Flutter is an SDK for the latter class platform development.

　Therefore, by using Flutter, it is possible to develop applications that can be used on many devices with a single "Dart" language. If we focus only on cross-platform development, it is no exaggeration to say that Flutter is the most used one today. In fact, Google searches seem to have more searches for Flutter compared to other cross-platform development SDKs.

　However, cross-platform development also has disadvantages. Since it is converted on the way to suit each OS, the performance will be degraded. An experiment conducted by a Ukrainian software development company comparing Android native, iOS native, and two major cross-platform development kits shows differences in performance, CPU usage, and execution memory usage. The experimental data is from June 2020.

　In Fuchsia, this "Flutter" application runs natively. As a result, developers currently using this SDK for iOS and Android applications will be able to release applications for Fuchsia without changing their development environment, and will be able to provide higher performance. increase.

　The author studied Flutter a little as a result of writing this article. I wrote a simple program. I found it very convenient that it supports "Hot Reload" by default, in which program changes are instantly reflected in the UI.

Gradual shift from Android to "Fuchsia"?

　Dohyun Kim said in his tweet that it will take several years for Samsung to adopt this OS, and that devices that will be announced in the future will not be migrated to Fuchsia immediately.　SamMobile, which reported this, said that Samsung may have already been involved in the development of Fuchsia OS, and that if a competitor decides to adopt Fuchsia OS in the future, Samsung will have a comparative advantage. I am predicting.

Samsung's proprietary OS has been around for a long time

　Samsung may be involved in the development of this OS, but the company has had a bitter experience with the jointly developed OS "Tizen" before.

　Tizen is a Linux-based OS developed under the leadership of the Linux Foundation, in addition to foreign companies such as Samsung and Motorola, as well as Japanese companies such as Docomo, which has already withdrawn from the mobile business, and Panasonic.

　The main feature of this OS is that the application development language is based on HTML. If you trace the origins of almost all websites that currently exist in this world, the basic parts are written in HTML, and Kono Gizmoshuttle!! is also written in HTML. In other words, if you are a basic web creator, it is easy to create applications that run on Tizen. Users also have the advantage of being able to experience almost the same user experience regardless of devices such as PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

　At first glance, this OS looks groundbreaking, but in the end it's almost like air. NEC and Panasonic withdrew from the mobile phone business. Docomo also postponed the originally planned domestic release of Tizen-equipped smartphones, and in the end, Tizen-equipped smartphones were never announced.

　Ultimately, nearly all Tizen-equipped products are made by Samsung. Although the Tizen-equipped smartphone "Galaxy Z" series was released, the global share fell to 0% in 2017. Recently, there have been almost no examples of it being installed in the company's smartphones, and it was only installed in the Galaxy Watch series and Samsung TVs.

　Meanwhile, Tizen OS will be integrated with Wear OS by Google before the announcement of the "Galaxy Watch4" series in 2021. The other day, it turned out that the app store "Tizen Store" for Tizen-equipped Samsung smartphones also ended the service, and Tizen is disappearing into the darkness.

Future of Android

　Realistically speaking, it's clear that smartphones with Fuchsia OS will actually be announced in the future. Also, it can be expected that Google or Samsung will announce the world's first smartphone with Fuchsia OS.

　If Google starts moving from Android to Fuchsia in earnest, Android support may gradually decrease, so many manufacturers should also move to Fuchsia OS. However, if the development of Android continues, it can be imagined that there will be a certain number of manufacturers who will wait and see.

summary

　Companies that can secure a large number of engineers can allocate a large number of personnel to development in each language, and there are many cases where native development is performed from the viewpoint of compatibility with the latest OS and performance.

　We don't know how many devices will be installed in the future, how many users will use it, and what kind of features and bugs it will have. Very risky for developers creating apps . This is something Samsung knows all too well from Tizen's failure.

　Furthermore, the current mobile OS is completely an era of two choices, Android or iOS. For developers who are doing native development on both sides, there is no merit in launching apps for a new OS that has a completely different development environment and language, and a small number of users.　I expect that Android and iOS will continue to be the dominant two, unless something extraordinary happens . We believe that the new OS can do what can be done with Android .”

　There is also information that "Fuchsia" can run Android applications and Linux applications natively , so if Android applications really work, it can be expected to be a great advantage for Fuchsia.

　The current situation is that there are many aspects of detailed information about "fuchsia" that have not yet been clarified. In future announcements, it seems that the whole picture of this OS will gradually become clear, but can it really be successful as a "new OS to replace Android" ? Or will it become the “second Tizen” ? Attention is focused on future information.