techrules

Think you have completed missed what is going on.  Plus it is happening right in front of us as Google develops in the open on GitHub.  They will move to Fuchsia.  It is not a question of if but rather when.

It is going to provide a much higher level of security then we have with anything else.  Even higher then ChromeOS.   The iOS, Android (Linux), Windows kernels are all in many millions of lines of code.   Zircon the kernel for Fuchsia is in the the 10s of thousands.   Apple tried to use a micro kernel but failed and had to back track.

But Apple did it with a different era of silicon.   So it just makes sense to move away from the "Android" brand.  

We can see on GitHub Android being ported to Fuchsia as a run time. 

BTW, I just love Google develops in the open like they do.  The only one that does this and it is so cool to watch.  You can see what they focus on from day to day.  You can see place holders to address later.  You can see what the strategy with the kernel is all about.    I have not been excited about anything this much since the development of the Linux kernel.   It is about time we got a completely new kernel.  That has not happen for over 20 years now.  iOS is really the architecture of the previous kernel and was not a fresh sheet effort.

rob53 said:

"First of all, if you're going to use Google Wifi, a Google account is required. It just is. If you're a hold-out rejecting any and all Google services on principle, you probably weren't considering a product named Google Wifi anyway."

Yep, that's me perfectly. No Google services at all and I get upset when the on-line stores I frequent make use of Google Services. 

If this is a concern you would just create a dummy account and not use for anything else.   Rather simple solution if a concern.   For me I love it uses my Google account because I have multiple times lost the account for network gear I have to manage.    The Google WiFi has an app that I use with my Google account and makes it a lot easier plus I have access anywhere I need.

I also am my up and side family (parents and siblings) network admin and also now my down family with kids starting to move out.   Love that I can easily admin their network if needed remotely and using the app with multiple networks all tied to my Google account.

This article is just amazing.    

Google purchased over 2,000 hardware people from HTC for $1.1 billion people.  They have now been onboarded and Google has moved some roles to this new unit.    So a net of a plus 2K headcount and a big investment in hardware for Google.

What appears to have happened is a reporter at Business Insider (BI) had a Google employee share they were being reassigned as their role moved.      The reporter then created an article that incorrectly came to the conclusion Google was cutting back on hardware where it is actually the exact opposite.   Tons and tons of more hardware is coming from Google.  They will be announcing their new gramming console next week (3/19 at GDC).   Plus Google has been hiring up chip engineer expertise and working on a custom SoC optimized for Zircon.   Alsonow selling the Edge TPUs, selling their LIDAR, and continue to add additional hardware products.

What is amazing is Business Insider does the article and then a bunch of articles are written based on the BI article.   These second tier articles, like this one, then get picked up on Reddit for example.    The fact is there is now a shortage in Intel processors because of Chromebook popularity.

"Chromebook popularity could prompt another round of Intel CPU shortages"

I personally purchased a Pixel Book to replace a Mac Book Pro I used for development.  Having GNU/Linux built into your development machine is just ideal.  MacOS is Unix and close to GNU/Linux but not the same.   Was at a recent Flutter meet up and there was two others with Pixel Books.   I have never seen a single Pixel Book in the wild before this.   I had seen the headline.

"Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US"

But had not experienced beyond K12.  The schools here in the US use Chromebooks extensively.

Google will continue to create a ton of hardware and we will see them producing more of their own custom chips.  They poached John Bruno from Apple and have been poaching a lot of chip engineers from Nvidia, Intel and others.   They have also been on a chip hiring spree in India.   Zircon is the new kernel coming from Google that replaces Linux and there is obvious design decisions with a chip to optimize.

Ultimately Google will do the entire stack like how Apple does the iPhone.

But man it is amazing one reporter can create so much misinformation.  Kudos to this person.  Would love to know if it was what was expected?  Or they are surprised?

The Google WiFi supports 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz for connecting and will sense which is optimal and use accordingly. There are nice iPad and iPhone apps you can see who is connecting and what channel and I oftentimes see a mixture of 2.4 mhz and 5.8 mhz connections.    Just open the app and click devices which is the bottom of the screen and then each device you can select and see if 5 ghz or 2.4 ghz or wired.    Ours mostly uses 5 ghz connections for devices and I really do not see any connected on 2.4 ghz.   But going through devices right now the Nest thermostats connect 2.4 ghz and seems most of our home automation stuff does but ipads and iphones are all 5 ghz.   We use wired for things that can be wired.    Since we have so much home automation stuff that is using 2.4 ghz might be why our devices all use 5 ghz.  BTW, we also have a lot of devices so early morning here and 51 devices.

When word came late last year of Apple ending AirPort support we replaced our AirPort Extremes with the Google WiFI and been really happy we did. The last Airport update was 7.7.8 which came out late last year and nothing since. So we are coming up on a year without any updates and that is never a good thing.    Would be replacing any AirPort hardware with something.

Been really happy with the Google WiFi. The app makes all your pucks look like one and you can manage your network like it is one thing.

I have a networking engineering background, stack development specifically, and can not do what the Google WiFi (GW) is doing. The reason is has network intelligence built in that I have learned over the years but the GW is able to apply dynamically or on the fly which I can not do. I have a huge family as in 8 kids and our house is the house to play. We also have a 100 mbps Internet connections. I use to segment our network which did cause issues with some things that wanted a flat network. But I did this to isolate traffic. I did this with static configuration of routes.

The Google WiFi is monitoring the network and optimizing by segmenting traffic dynamically and on the fly. While also making the network look flat and like one network even though it has multiple access points. This is all transparent to the user.

It is like having your cake and being able to eat it to. Then the cherry on top is the app to manage.

Probably my favorite thing is able to use IFTTT to get alerts for people in my house. So I can lay in bed and get an alert when kids get home. Plus I can check if kids brought extras with them. So one night saw an girlfriend device extra passed curfew in our basement. Now do not tell them how I knew. Big fan of the Google WiFi and highly recommend. Had not had any issues. BTW, iPad makes a great device for monitoring the network. Google has an iPad map that works really well.

Now that would make a ton of sense and hope it is true. There just does not seem to be much coming out of Apple any longer and really someone needs to compete with Google instead of giving everything to them. Our school use to be almost all Apple and last year they replaced the last Macs with Chromebooks and honestly hard to see them going back to Apple. My wife went to the same school district and she used Apple at this school and it had been all Apple for 25 years. Saw the post that Google has now even passed Amazon in smart speaker sales. That happen way quicker than I would have thought even possible. Only Apple and Google have mobile platforms and so it is on Apple to make sure that Google does not win everything. Last week Google at I/O shared Chromebook sales grew 50% YoY. Looking at the Mac numbers they were higher in 2015 than in 2016 or 2017. Apple needs to get doing something instead of just sitting back.