With the release of Windows 10, Microsoft committed to a much faster release schedule than the clunky model of old. This means the operating system is to be treated as a service rather than as a monolithic block of software, which it has become over the last three decades.
One of the ways to address this is Microsoft’s OneCore approach, which is to say, uniting all of the disparate flavors of the OS into something that’s easier to manage and adapt. The next iteration of this initiative seems to be something internally referred to as Andromeda OS.
According to Windows Central, Andromeda OS would take Windows into a more modular territory, allowing it to adapt to each specific device, not only in terms of visual presentation and overall UX – which Windows 8 tried, though never quite succeeded -, but also in terms of the components installed on each device. In other words, Windows 10 running on a smartwatch would install only the components of the OS necessary for this type of device, which vastly reduces the size of the install and increases the system’s overall adaptability.
By approaching the OS as a modular platform, personalized product variants such as Windows 10 Mobile or the variant underpinning the UX on the Xbox would simply be redundant. In a world in which the system can be built up like Lego to suit a certain use case, the separation into these different cubby holes of product versions goes out the window.
The universal-but-not-quite situation we have today with the rift between Win32 apps and UWP apps would indeed take a back seat, with Andromeda OS promising a truly universal solution and being able to support the tailoring of components for each device much in the way hardware makers choose which features of an OS to support on their phones, tablets, and other such units.
Together with the rather mysterious CShell, Microsoft’s universal, highly adaptable UI that’s currently in the works, Andromeda OS seems to be pushing the boundaries of the Windows ecosystem even further. The mythical Surface Phone - that’s yet to show up anywhere - could very well be running Microsoft’s new breed of operating system, since the latter is projected to be ready "sometime in 2018”, with its introduction being a lot more mobile-focused.
Do not get your hopes up in regards to seeing this componentized version of Windows 10 being referred to as Andromeda OS publicly. For now at least, it’s a strictly internal platform aimed at expanding the Windows ecosystem by making the building of the OS more efficient than it currently is.
The main idea of this initiative is not too dissimilar to Google's Fuchsia OS, though the latter may be more of a consumer-facing change compared to the former.
Source: Windows Central
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