Rewind back to late last year, prior to Google’s Pixel announcement and try to remember the hype surrounding a new OS called Andromeda. It was meant to be the saviour for all non-iOS tablets and the hype-train was in full effect. Unfortunately we are now seeing reports of it being discontinued.
For a while now Android tablets have lacked … well … they have lacked just about everything. The rumours were very strong that Google were set to announce the new tablet OS, a Android/ChromeOS hybrid, alongside the Pixel phones. We expected, nay, we hoped that we would see a decent tablet and a laptop running this OS and by the number of articles we saw around the traps we weren’t the only ones. We thought it was going to be a defining moment for Google and their desktop ecosystem.
Unfortunately, something went awry and we never did see any Andromeda at that or any other Google event. It is now over six months since then and we have not seen many, if any, rumours regarding Andromeda for a long time which is not a good sign of its continues existence.
Today, Managing Editor of 9to5Google, Stephen Hall has tweeted out that Andromeda is no more:
https://twitter.com/hallstephenj/status/871456529160863745?s=09
Did it ever really exist? Did Google ever really plan to release Andromeda? It seems likely that we will never really know with some of Andromeda being worked on as parts of new projects now. What does this say for the future of Android tablets? Not much I’m afraid. Your guess is as good as ours. Maybe FuschiaOS can fill the void and become a decent tablet OS?
One thing that seems certain, Andromeda is no more. Surely Google has a plan up their sleeves for the flailing tablet ecosystem. They wouldn’t have just given up would they?
I think it’s pretty certain Google is putting all its energy into Chrome OS and Android apps.
At least this time the beta company didn’t release it and the. Cancel it shortly after.