Google has hired a 14-year Apple veteran to work on its upcoming Fuchsia OS. The company has been working on the new OS for a while now, and it has been a talking point throughout last year.
Google is still nowhere near releasing actual products powered by Fuchsia, but it’s now hired Bill Stevenson, a software engineer who has worked on some of Apple’s popular products like Mac, OS X, AirPlay, iCloud, etc. Most recently, he was responsible for Mac and Windows program management at Apple, leading teams for the release and technical management for macOS and Apple’s Windows software, reports 9to5Google.
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He was also responsible for the development schedule, beta releases, risk management and launch logistics for the recent major macOS releases, including Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, and Mojave.
On LinkedIn, Stevenson announced that he is joining Google to work on Fuchsia and help bring it to market. “I’m excited to share that this February I will be joining Google to help bring a new operating system called Fuchsia to market. Stay tuned!”, Stevenson said.
Stevenson’s appointment could be an indicator of Google thinking about the product side of things for Fuchsia. The company has been focused on the technical side of the new OS for a while, and it’s probably going to start looking into release, launch, and marketing plans for Fuchsia. That obviously doesn’t mean we will see a real product powered by Fuchsia this year, so don’t get your hopes up — yet.
skane2600
<p>I suspect the result will be more focus on specific appropriate product areas for fuchsia and less on the "everything for everywhere" hype that has dominated the discussion so far.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#399027">In reply to obarthelemy:</a></em></blockquote><p>Even at the lowest level, the intended purpose of an OS impacts the architecture and the added higher levels can't change its fundamental nature. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#399033">In reply to obarthelemy:</a></em></blockquote><p>Fuchsia has been described as an RTOS which is one basis for my comment. Even non-real-time embedded systems often have very limited resources available so Fuchsia may be overkill for that segment. In some cases it won't be Fuchsia vs Linux, but Fuchsia vs custom code. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#399076">In reply to Oreo:</a></em></blockquote><p>Often the bar is set very low for cross platform claims. True cross platform (in this case, dual platform) would imply that you could write a non-trivial app without giving any thought or taking any action to address the differences between iOS and Android (either imperatively or declaratively) and it would work identically on both. </p><p><br></p><p>Because the ability to support more than one platform by tweaking it for each system has been a standard technique for nearly 40 years.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#399102">In reply to obarthelemy:</a></em></blockquote><p>From your link: "At Flutter Live today, we announced that we are experimenting with running Flutter on the Web."</p><p><br></p><p>"Experimenting". That's not exactly confirmation that Flutter will support the Web. In any case, it's dangerous to take whatever goals are stated during the development stage of an unreleased project and assume that it will be fully implemented when it becomes a product and is finally released. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#400023">In reply to Oreo:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think your last statement is just a claim. What exactly about the design or implementation makes it "from the very beginning cross platform"? How is it different than any other cross-platform scheme?</p>
dontbe evil
<p>google fuchsia + apple veteran = what a mess</p>