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Ex-Googler’s new project may make Android look as primitive as an Apple IIe

Published Jan 15th, 2014 5:00PM EST
Nextbit Mobile Software Project Google
Image: Nextbit

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Two ex-Googlers just received $18 million from Accel and Google Ventures for a vague-yet-ambitious-sounding project called Nextbit that has something to do with mobile. Its basic website doesn’t reveal much more and only says that it is “looking to build something bigger” and that it is “building the groundbreaking technology that will take (mobile) to the next level.”

Nextbit co-founder Tom Moss told Re/code that mobile computing so far as only advanced from the equivalent of the typewriter to the Apple IIe.

“It’s just starting,” Moss explained.

He also called the project a “moon shot,” using Google’s term for its most ambitious projects that have included self-driving cars and Google Glass. It sounds like Nextbit could be building anything from a fancy new app to an entirely new operating system. Whatever it is, Re/code says it “involves more than just Android.”

Nextbit has an impressive team to build whatever it is building. Both co-founders worked on Android when it was in early development, and it has engineers from Google’s Android team, Apple’s iOS team, Dropbox, and Amazon’s AWS team.