Android apps on Chrome OS — it’s bigger than you think
Chrome OS was announced in 2010 as a cloud operating system. Cheap hardware designs, low-end chips and what’s the most important — basically no local storage. Everything was meant to be stored in the cloud and accessed via Chrome browser. At that time, people usually laugh at such idea. No local storage? A machine that is useless without internet connection? “$300 for a browser?! I can have Chrome on my Windows machine for free!”
System design and architecture
Google and Apple used their low market share as an advantage. When you don’t have to protect the legacy OS as Microsoft has to protect desktop Windows, you can innovate and start from scratch. In case of Chrome OS it meant designing the operating system with security, maintainability and performance in mind. With such strong foundations, you can slightly change the direction later. Yes, on the beginning, Chromebooks without internet connection were practically useless and not having local storage was problematic.
On the other hand, Chromebooks were also easy to maintain, secure, cheap and fun to use. Even tech journalists liked the idea — “maybe it’s not form me, but it’s a perfect device for my family of for education”. And that’s how it started. Strong push in education sector and focus on seamless experiences. No random battery drain, no Win32 malware, curated app store, automatic full backup. These are real selling points. Idea of having a browser as your default computing environment was natural in 2010 — in the era of web.
Progress in hardware and software
With such solid foundations, Google had a chance to set new goals and make progress. Hardware was getting better and better, OEMs added local storage, quality raised. And finally, Google introduced offline apps. Fast forward to 2016 — how often do you put your laptop out the bag when you know there’s no WiFi/internet connection? I guess not very often. Chromebooks’ former biggest issue is a no-problem in a connected world.
What’s more, flagship hardware finally arrived — powerful Chromebook Pixel with touch screen and premium design. Platform independent OS (it works on both ARM and x86 chips). All without desktop Windows’ problems such as security, random battery drain, privilege escalation or poor OS backup options. Chrome OS really moved your operating system to the cloud. After buying new machine, you just log in to Google account and you ready to go. All apps, files and settings are there. Magic.
Android apps
In a meantime, computing world switched from being web-centric to app-centric. iPhone, iPad and app revolution moved us away from our browsers. Because apps are better. Dedicated to a task. More focused. Google introduced Chrome Web Store long time ago, but after huge Android success it caused some confusion and duality. Now we still have Chrome Web Store (for Chrome OS) and Play Store (for Android). Two separate operating systems and two separate app environments. It would be a sin not to use Android power to lift up Chrome OS. And that’s exactly what was announced during Google IO 2016. Now you can run Android apps natively* on newer and all future Chromebooks. And this is huge.
“But Chromebook still won’t run ‘x’!” Yup, but in few years no one would care less about your ‘x’ or ‘y’. But it will run hundreds of thousands of modern Android mobile apps deeply integrated with Google services. And the apps will get better — especially for mouse/cursor input. Microsoft have much more elegant solution to such fragmentation problem (mobile OS vs desktop OS) — since Windows 10 there is a common runtime and single app platform for all Windows apps — mobile or desktop. There is one problem, however. The app ecosystem (Universal Windows Platform apps, not old desktop apps) is nearly non-existent. Most elegant solution is not always the best one nor the most efficient one. Google has working solution and it may succeed.
Mountain View giant is in unique position to steal consumer PC/laptop market from Microsoft. And it seems inevitable unless Microsoft understands that most people don’t need and don’t wand old desktop operating systems with all its problems.
*”natively” means many different things to many different people
