It has been said for years that Fuchsia, as Google's upcoming operating system, would be supported on Chrome OS and Android devices. Today, this statement seems to have been confirmed by a new change spotted in the Android Open Source Project and we can officially say that the expected operating system from Google will be able to run Android apps using the Android Runtime.
According to 9to5Google, last month two new Fuchsia-related repositories were revealed to have been added to the Android Open Source Project. The first is “platform/prebuilts/fuchsia_sdk,” which contains a copy of the Fuchsia SDK used to build Fuchsia apps. The second is “device/google/fuchsia,” which appears to be a device that could be used by the Android Emulator to run the upcoming operating system. In a new changelog posted to the Android source code repository Gerrit, Google has filled in the blanks to explain the purpose of the “device/google/fuchsia” repository. Simply put, Google’s new operating system will use a specially designed version of the Android Runtime (“ART”) to run Android apps. The version of ART will be installed on any Fuchsia device using a .far file, which is the same as the Android APK. However, it has not been clarified how Google’s operating system will use the Android Runtime.
Regardless of what has been clarified and what has not, the new devices will be used to run Android applications. This is not a surprise, as Android is the most popular operating system in the world. At the same time, the fact that support for Android apps is offered in the Play Storewill make it easier for users to move from Android to Fuchsia. So far, it is too early to say exactly what to expect from the new devices, but it would not be surprising if Google announced a new release of the much-discussed operating system soon.
