About a year ago, a WSJ report claimed that Google could merge its mobile operating system, Android, and its Chromebook operating system, Chrome OS, into one more powerful OS. At that time, the rumour about the folding of the two operating systems was denied by Hiroshi Lockheimer, the SVP of Android, Google Play and Chrome.
(Andromeda Galaxy: Image via Wikipedia)
A couple of days ago, Lockheimer himself restarted the rumour mill about the supposed merger. This is what he tweeted:
We announced the 1st version of Android 8 years ago today. I have a feeling 8 years from now we'll be talking about Oct 4, 2016.
— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) September 24, 2016
ICYMI, Android turned 9 recently. So, what new thing could possibly match that of Android’s release? Why , a new OS of course. And that will apparently be called, Andromeda.
Android Police reports that Andromeda is indeed real, and that the October 4th event, where the new Pixel devices will be launched, will also feature a demo of the new merged OS. This is something which WSJ predicted quite accurately a year ago. It’s finally happening, but not immediately though, as Andromeda may only be released by 2017.
Google recently released its mobile app store, Google Play, for some Chromebooks. And with the potential launch of Andromeda, the Mountain View company is targeting a market where Chrome OS has not been well received, Laptops.
All new devices which come with Nougat, have two partitions, for seamless OS updates, i.e., the OS will be updated, while the user is still using the phone for regular tasks. And when the device reboots, it will be updated to the new OS. This is actually how Chrome OS’ auto update works.
And with Google merging all of its devices under the Pixel branding, this makes a lot of sense, as we may see them running on the same OS.
