“Android and Chrome OS are merging”, WSJ says. Since those two happen to be among my favoritest of platforms, I feel strangely compelled to try and predict how it’ll play out. If only so I can point at myself and laugh a few years from now when the dust settles.
This is all assuming such a merger is actually happening. It’s been in the cards for years and years, Sergey Brin himself said as much years ago. So yes, I think the report is probably true, which is exciting. It’s a couple of years sooner than I had expected, no matter, it’ll be an interesting year.
First off, I think that once this “merger” is done, Google will probably keep Chrome OS around. There will be the newly merged Chrome/Android OS (let’s call it Google OS for now) for the mid- to high end, and Chrome OS for the low end. Sure, eventually even the low end hardware will be so powerful that there wouldn’t be much reason they wouldn’t run Google OS. But “Chromebooks” as a phenomenon will probably stick around for years and years and years to come still.
The big question this supposed merger raises is: why? What’s the benefit? If Google actually will keep Chrome OS around, there won’t be any engineering resources to gain from a merger. So probably the answer will have to be found by approaching the question from a different angle.
What are problems facing Android right now?
- An inability to push system updates, in the face of mounting security issues mandating it.
- An inability to keep a consistent user experience across devices.
Enter Chrome OS. What’s the one thing that Chrome does so incredibly well?
Updates. They happen automatically, and in the background.
Oh, and OEMs can’t change the appearance, “to differentiate”, because Google updates all Chrome OS devices directly.
As a fan of the Android platform, there’s every chance that a new singular OS, updated directly by Google and untouched by OEMs, is just a fever-dream.
Still, it seems almost inevitable at this point, especially in light of security scares like “Heartbleed”, “Shellshock” and “Stagefright”. The next bad-horror-movie-titled security hole is just around the corner. Something has to happen, so why not go all the way? Android is open source, it’ll continue to exist for manufacturers to use and fork and further. But if they want the new-fangled Google OS, they have to abide by new rules. It worked for Windows, didn’t it?
Interesting times.
