It goes without saying that Android is the dominating operating system on mobile at the moment. It powers the majority of smartphones around the world and while there is plenty to love about Android, is it getting a bit too big for its britches? Perhaps, and so much so that Facebook apparently wants to move away from it.
In a report from The Information (paywall), it seems that Facebook is apparently developing their own operating system to try and reduce their dependence on Android. The development of Facebook's own OS is said to be led by Mark Lucovsky, a former Microsoft exec who helped co-author the Windows NT operating system back in the day.
That being said, it is unclear how Facebook's own OS will be used. As it stands, Facebook has apps on both iOS and Android devices, but its Oculus and Portal devices are powered by a modified version of Android. It has been suggested that maybe in the future, with Facebook's own OS, they can build hardware without having to rely on Android, which could also remove certain limitations and restrictions on what it can and cannot do.
Facebook's head of hardware, Andrew Bosworth told The Information:
"We really want to make sure the next generation has space for us. We don't think we can trust the marketplace or competitors to ensure that's the case. And so we're gonna do it ourselves."
Facebook's decision shouldn't really come as a surprise. The recent debacle involving Huawei and the US government shows how much it can affect a company and also how reliant many companies are on Google's operating system, so maybe it's not necessarily a bad thing to start creating alternatives.
Source: The Verge
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