5 ms·

This is lunacy. Nothing is going to replace Android but the next version of Android, for the same reason why Microsoft will forever continue developing Windows:

by m0zg 8y ago

This is lunacy. Nothing is going to replace Android but the next version of Android, for the same reason why Microsoft will forever continue developing Windows: there are (hunrders of?) billions of lines of code written for it, and: 1. Users just want to run their software, 2. Developers just want to sell their software, and nobody is going to give a shit about principled OS design or whatever. If Google doesn't understand this, they're about to learn a hard, and expensive, lesson.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Google has already made Android apps run on Chrome OS, and I think are at least planning to do with Fuchsia. Which is to say, Google could kill the Android OS as long as they preserve the Android app platform. 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.
- asveikau 8y ago
  > Windows has actually replaced their Win32 app model with UWP 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.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    The main hold up to new development being UWP is the lack of compatibility with Windows 7, which is going out of support in January. Enterprises will most all have switched by then, and it will be considered pretty safe to develop ew software with UWP over legacy APIs.
    - asveikau 8y ago
      That works, except for: 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.
      - m0zg 8y ago
        I actually looked at UWP a couple of years back. To my shock and amazement, at the time the C++ API did not contain anything that would allow you to resize bitmaps. You could resize them for display, no problem, but there was nothing like Core Image available. How this is possible in this day and age on the world's premier desktop OS, I don't know.
        asveikau 8y ago
        AFAIK a UWP app can use Windows Imaging Components (WIC) for that task, which is a COM API introduced around the Vista era. Part of the great nebulousness of defining UWP is that they can retroactively say a particular Win32 API is "modern" enough to fit.
- m0zg 8y ago
  Microsoft never did and never will "replace" anything with anything. They'll just minimally rearrange the barnacles on the ship to make space for new barnacles. Their customers rely on being able to run software they purchased 20 years ago in some cases. And I personally haven't seen anybody use Android apps on ChromeOS.
  - MBCook 8y ago
    Sure, because switching people from the Windows 95 line of OSes to the NT line with XP was just ‘rearranging barnicles’
    - asveikau 8y ago
      During that transition, which yes was major, you had Win32 as the recommended API before and after.
afandian 8y ago
If BlackBerry cam figure out how to run Android apps on BBOS 10 (which is QNX under the hood) I'm sure Google can get the Android runtime working on Fuchsia.
qznc 8y ago
On the one hand, I agree that Google has to ensure backwards compatibility or vendors like Samsung will just do their own thing. On the other hand, they can completely replace the underlying OS just like Windows NT and OS X did. That seems possible to me.
usrusr 8y ago
What if "the next version of Android" will run all those old .APKs on something that isn't Linux? To someone working on the OS level of present day Android this will be "not Android anymore", to everybody else it will be just another iteration, perhaps worth a little brand refresh. There's no conflict beyond semantics.
- m0zg 8y ago
  Don't see how that will work, given that a lot of the more desirable apps use native API and their developers have no desire whatsoever to put in more work to adopt yet another Google OS, in addition to Anrdoid. See e.g. what happened to Windows Mobile. Excellent OS (better than Anrdoid in terms of UX IMO), but failed to get traction with devs. 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.

by m0zg 8y ago

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

Google has already made Android apps run on Chrome OS, and I think are at least planning to do with Fuchsia. Which is to say, Google could kill the Android OS as long as they preserve the Android app platform. 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.

asveikau 8y ago
> Windows has actually replaced their Win32 app model with UWP 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.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  The main hold up to new development being UWP is the lack of compatibility with Windows 7, which is going out of support in January. Enterprises will most all have switched by then, and it will be considered pretty safe to develop ew software with UWP over legacy APIs.
  - asveikau 8y ago
    That works, except for: 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.
    - m0zg 8y ago
      I actually looked at UWP a couple of years back. To my shock and amazement, at the time the C++ API did not contain anything that would allow you to resize bitmaps. You could resize them for display, no problem, but there was nothing like Core Image available. How this is possible in this day and age on the world's premier desktop OS, I don't know.
      - asveikau 8y ago
        AFAIK a UWP app can use Windows Imaging Components (WIC) for that task, which is a COM API introduced around the Vista era. Part of the great nebulousness of defining UWP is that they can retroactively say a particular Win32 API is "modern" enough to fit.
m0zg 8y ago
Microsoft never did and never will "replace" anything with anything. They'll just minimally rearrange the barnacles on the ship to make space for new barnacles. Their customers rely on being able to run software they purchased 20 years ago in some cases. And I personally haven't seen anybody use Android apps on ChromeOS.
- MBCook 8y ago
  Sure, because switching people from the Windows 95 line of OSes to the NT line with XP was just ‘rearranging barnicles’
  - asveikau 8y ago
    During that transition, which yes was major, you had Win32 as the recommended API before and after.

afandian 8y ago

If BlackBerry cam figure out how to run Android apps on BBOS 10 (which is QNX under the hood) I'm sure Google can get the Android runtime working on Fuchsia.

qznc 8y ago

On the one hand, I agree that Google has to ensure backwards compatibility or vendors like Samsung will just do their own thing. On the other hand, they can completely replace the underlying OS just like Windows NT and OS X did. That seems possible to me.

usrusr 8y ago

What if "the next version of Android" will run all those old .APKs on something that isn't Linux? To someone working on the OS level of present day Android this will be "not Android anymore", to everybody else it will be just another iteration, perhaps worth a little brand refresh. There's no conflict beyond semantics.

m0zg 8y ago
Don't see how that will work, given that a lot of the more desirable apps use native API and their developers have no desire whatsoever to put in more work to adopt yet another Google OS, in addition to Anrdoid. See e.g. what happened to Windows Mobile. Excellent OS (better than Anrdoid in terms of UX IMO), but failed to get traction with devs. 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.