“We learned in 2016 that Google was working on an entirely new operating system called Fuchsia. Development continues with new features and testing on a variety of form factors spotted regularly,” Abner Li reports for 9to5Google. “Google has since hired 14-year Apple engineer Bill Stevenson to work on its upcoming OS, and help bring it to market.”
“Stevenson started at Apple in 2004 as a Product Release Engineer for OS X,” Li reports. “In this role, he ‘triaged and diagnosed’ application and framework issues, while also working with third-party developers.”
“Since 2012, Stevenson has been a Senior Manager for Mac/Windows Program Management,” Li reports. “He has had a hand in every major release from Lion right up to Mojave last year; leading teams responsible for build, release, and technical program management.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Last July, Mark Bergen and Mark Gurman reported for Bloomberg:
Fuchsia was created from scratch to overcome the limitations of Android as more personal devices and other gadgets come online. It’s being designed to better accommodate voice interactions and frequent security updates and to look the same across a range of devices, from laptops to tiny internet-connected sensors…
Members of the Fuchsia team have discussed a grander plan that is being reported here for the first time: Creating a single operating system capable of running all the company’s in-house gadgets, like Pixel phones and smart speakers, as well as third-party devices that now rely on Android and another system called Chrome OS, according to people familiar with the conversations.
According to one of the people, engineers have said they want to embed Fuchsia on connected home devices, such as voice-controlled speakers, within three years, then move on to larger machines such as laptops. Ultimately the team aspires to swap in their system for Android.
Google. Trying to get to where Apple was decades ago.
SEE ALSO:
Google’s mysterious Fuchsia OS gets Apple Swift language support – November 21, 2017
Apple’s Swift creator departs Tesla after just six months – June 21, 2017
Chris Lattner, who designed and built much of Swift, is leaving Apple – January 10, 2017
Apple’s Swift programming language drives enterprise mobile rethink – May 9, 2016
Nearly half of OS X devs want to learn Swift – May 5, 2016
Google mulls adopting Apple’s Swift language for Android – April 8, 2016
Want a developer job? Time to learn Apple’s Swift as demand skyrockets – March 1, 2016
Apple’s open source Swift will open the door for HomeKit – December 16, 2015
Apple has hugely ambitious plans for open-sourced Swift, and hints on what’s coming to iOS – December 15, 2015
After Apple open sources it, IBM puts Swift programming in the cloud – December 4, 2015
Apple officially releases Swift programming language as open source – December 3, 2015
Apple’s open-sourced Swift programming language could change everything – November 25, 2015
Apple’s Swift programming language could soon infiltrate data centers – November 24, 2015
Developers band together to create Mandarin Chinese translation of Apple’s Swift programming language – August 6, 2015
Apple’s Swift breaks into top 20 in dev language survey; bad news for Microsoft’s Visual Basic – July 2, 2015
Apple’s Swift: The future of enterprise app development – June 10, 2015
This is yet another market that Tim Cook has gift wrapped for the competition.
Fuchsia will some day:
Replace and replicate the functionality of Android
Function as both the desktop and mobile OS of the future
Replace Windows and MacOS for this new generation
Become the embedded OS that Windows always hoped to be
The only thing that concerns me, can I trust google with my personal information?
That would be a BIG no!
Endless predictions have been made about endless products and everyone should value each of them, such as yours, equally.
This is a huge loss for Apple. It speaks volumes behind the Cupertino curtain that a second seasoned Mac OS specialist, and another Apple heir apparent CEO like Scott Forstall, have BOTH left Apple since 2012. Don’t have a good feeling and do not see how it bodes well for the future of Mac products…
“like Scott Forstall”
Wait. The headline says he’s going to work on Fuchsia OS. Is that just some Broadway play and NOT a real OS? Because, you know, that’s the ONLY thing that would make him like Forstall LOL
I mean, maybe if Forstall was working on an OS for ANYTHING… (maybe even a tamagotchi?) that would make them more alike. But JUST barely.
Proves again that the people of VALUE in tech that leave Apple go on to do other tech things, usually as a high level leader. Those that aren’t… well, you know.
Hope we also get a new CPU to go along with the new Zircon kernel.
Another leader that left Apple to LEAD another technical organization. Meanwhile, back on Broadway………
Meanwhile the Broadway broken record Wrong Again, gee what a surprise, is totally clueless to the genuis of Scott Forstall. Learn how to read:
At one point in his life, Scott Forstall had a tech career where he worked for Steve Jobs. And apparently, his ONLY tech career for the rest of his life will be to TALK ABOUT when he used to work for Steve Jobs.
Because before he worked for Steve Jobs he didn’t do tech and AFTER he worked for Steve Jobs, he didn’t do tech. I’m absolutely willing to see Scott Forstall to pull a Steve Jobs or a Bill Stevenson (or an “most anyone else that has left Apple”), but I’m not going to hold my breath.
The “broken-ness” of my record is matched by those that proclaim THIS GUY, CURRENTLY WORKING ON BROADWAY, SHOULD BE THE CEO OF APPLE!!! This isn’t really for you, it’s for other people that come across this thread and, like me, thought Scott Forstall WOULD be a good CEO. Until I decided to look into “What’s ol’ Scott doing now, something else AMAZING in tech no doubt”… only to find out that he’s been working on Broadway since leaving Apple.
Ladies and Gentlemen, if you feel that someone working on Broadway would be an excellent leader of one of the largest tech companies in the world, there’s a bridge near Broadway that I, quite incredibly, have up for sale and am willing to give you a REALLY good deal on.
Apple certainly can’t remain complacent on this matter having defeated Microsofts ambitions here if they aren’t careful they will be blind sided by another coming from no where to offer a wider ranging platform right Into the core of Apples platform striking at laptop desktop and derivatives in ways that no one previously has succeeded. Considering the almost illogical impact of Chrome in this area at least in education despite its disadvantages hardly inspires me in confidence that Cook and co are prepared for the challenge of potentially being beaten at their own game by a damn search engine developer.
There’s nothing illogical about being cheap to succeed. Wal-Mart grew from nothing, based on this simple principle. Manufacturing in China is not because companies WANT to do it, it’s because it’s cheap. Apple doesn’t do cheap. They don’t even do inexpensive. So, in areas where the focus is on cheap, cheap will win.
See Linux can’t do a OS cheap, you need someone make the hard decisions that is why iOS and Mac OSX got done, and it is part (half) of the reason Forstall isn’t at Apple. If this guy is the real deal he won’t make friends at Google with the installed geek software design people.
Considering Android is commercially in devices as small as embedded systems and as large as tablets and emulation in Chromebooks, it’s a pretty wide range of devices for a single OS to cover. The only other OS project I remember that had such ambition was Japan’s MSX OS project in the 80s and maybe Microsoft with all its Windows variants/subsets. Sorry MDN iOS/MacOS doesn’t even come close.
Various versions of Apple’s iOS/macOS run in the following devices:
iMac
Mac mini
Macbooks (various types)
iPads
iPhones
Apple TV
Apple Watch
AirPods
That’s a pretty wide range of devices. I don’t think a “single OS” that truly wasn’t modified would be a good idea. Google is making noise about doing it. That doesn’t mean they will succeed, or that it will actually be good.
Hell, them making noise about a project doesn’t even mean it will ever happen. Go look up the list of projects Google has abandoned after bragging to credulous tech journalists.
Google earnings must be coming up hence the smokescreen….hold on people (Wall Street) we got new coming up.