Well that escalated quickly: India demos homebrew mobile OS
A mere week after an Indian government official teased the possibility the nation could create its own mobile OS to challenge the dominance of Google and Apple, minister for education and minister of skill development & entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan has demonstrated just such an OS at work and endorsed it as the sort of the India should be doing.
JANDKOPS – the think tank incubated at IIT Madras that created the OS – claims it is ideal for users who wish to access private clouds over private 5G networks.
Pradhan praised the operating system's monopoly busting potential, while other speakers at the launch suggested it could be ideal for use by India's government as it could be customized.
It's reportedly based on the Linux kernel, but beyond that, few details have been revealed. Screenshots posted by JANDKOPS depict the Android keyboard app on one screen, a shortcut to the DuckDuckGo search engine, plus design elements that will look very familiar to users of Google's mobile OS.
JANDKOPS's site states the OS is "currently being provided to organizations that have stringent security and privacy requirements" – strongly suggesting it is already in use.
