Andromeda Dreams and Awakenings (Premium)

Yes, folks, Andromeda is real. Beyond that, most of what we think we know about this coming platform is pure speculation.

So here’s an update. Both the facts and some educated guesses.

I last wrote about Andromeda back in January in The Andromeda Strain (Premium). At the time, my focus was on the Windows enthusiast base and whether they were just setting themselves up for another disappointment.

I still worry about that, and I have little doubt that Andromeda, as I currently understand it, will be a niche product for certain vertical markets that “need” a dual-screen mobile device that lets the user read and take notes simultaneously. The issue, as always, is ecosystem: Microsoft doesn’t have one. Thus, the hardware itself, no matter how pretty, is pointless.

And yet there is still a very good chance that Andromeda will happen. And an even better chance that the heart of Microsoft’s new “Windows 10 everywhere” strategy, called Polaris, will happen. So we’ll need to deal with these things on some level.

Before moving on to this week’s Andromeda revelations, let me quickly recap what I do know about this Microsoft project.

First, yes, it’s real: Andromeda is a dual-screen mobile device, often incorrectly referred to as “Surface phone,” that Microsoft is prototyping and considering for production. It runs some version of Windows 10 for PCs, not Windows Mobile.

Andromeda is not a consumer device. It’s aimed instead at productivity scenarios, specifically those where you can write on one screen and read on the other simultaneously.

And here’s a bit I’ve not yet discussed publicly: Microsoft didn’t add an ebook store to Windows 10 so that you can read books on a PC. That happened specifically for Andromeda. Which, by the way, lends some weight to the notion that Microsoft will approve this device for production.

OK, so what’s new in Andromeda facts and speculation?

(Speculation is fun, but it’s also cheap, and anyone can do it. Just be careful of speculation that’s presented as fact. I try to be clear about which is which, but other sites are a bit looser with this stuff.)

This week, WalkingCat posted some images from the latest Windows 10 Redstone 5 pre-release SDK that reference “Factory OS Andromeda Device.” That is clearly the Windows 10 edition that will power Andromeda, which is a hardware device.

But then he engages in a bit of expansion. He suggests that the phrase “Andromeda OS” is a thing, which further suggests that Andromeda runs something different than Windows 10. It doesn’t, it’s just some version of Windows 10. (Could there be a specific “edition” or version of Windows 10 that targets Andromeda? Of course.)

WalkingCat also posted some images that reference “Polaris” and “PolarisOS.” This, he says, is “Windows Core.” Which, again, isn’t actually mentioned in the shot he posts.

Windows Core, of course, is nothing new. It’s basically the lowest levels Windows, architecturally, and the part that is common across all of the platforms that run on some version of Windows 10 (the PC OS, Surface Hub, Xbox One, and so on). Microsoft’s work on componentizing Windows has been ongoing for 20 years, and it makes further gains on a regular basis.

But Polaris, if it is a new version of Windows Core, could mark a break with the past. Neowin, speculating but presenting this as a fact, says that “Windows Core OS is a new, ‘modern’ version of Microsoft’s flagship OS, which strips out most of the legacy compatibility and software, making the operating system lighter and more flexible. Core OS is said to adapt its interface to all different kinds of devices thanks to the new CShell UI.”

Windows Core/Core OS isn’t that, exactly. It’s the core part of that “Windows 10 everywhere” thing I mentioned recently in What is Microsoft Edge? What Should it Be? (Premium). It’s literally just Windows Core. A new version/generation, whatever. But it’s not “the flagship OS.” The flagship OS, built on Windows Core, is Windows 10 for PCs.

I don’t know anything about CShell, but then no one does. But when you think about an adaptive user interface that can meld itself to multiple devices—“Windows 10 everywhere,” again—you can sort of see why Microsoft has never really worked to modernize the shell and file system interfaces in today’s Windows 10. It could simply be going away, making that UWP File Explorer that everyone seems to want so badly moot.

Another point. In the images that WalkingCat posted, you can clearly see references to both “x86” and “ARM64,” suggesting that Andromeda and the software which it runs could be either Intel-type or Qualcomm/ARM.

So I’ll do some speculation of my own: I bet it’s the latter and that Andromeda will be a Surface-branded mobile device running on ARM. It could very well be the first Surface-branded ARM device, an interesting break from the past as Microsoft attempts to invent yet another form factor.

Finally, I’ll also note again that this new information comes from a prerelease Redstone 5 SDK for developers. That suggests that the earliest Andromeda could arrive would be within the RS5 lifetime, which starts in September/October. That timing makes sense and is in keeping with previous speculation about when this device might come to market.