In many ways, those apps will work a lot better on a Chromebook since they will be able to scale up or down as needed while allowing for keyboard and mouse input. A trio of Chromebooks – the Asus Chromebook Flip and Acer’s Chromebook R11 and Pixel – will receive updates next month that will let them run Android apps, and the company says it will expand support to more Chrome devices later this year. Google described the feature as a “big leap forward” but “just the beginning” of the next phase of Chrome OS, hinting at more features to reinforce the platform’s growing market share.
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Chromebooks topped the Mac for the No. 2 spot in PC shipments for the first quarter of 2016, becoming the second-most popular PC platform in the us behind Microsoft’s Windows, according to research firm IDC. So, for example if Google Hangout doesn’t work for an organization, Skype for Android, Slack or any other Android messaging app will soon be able to fill that void.
As cloud-based computing continues to grow, Google’s low-priced Chromebooks have found increasing traction. “You will get hands-on help from our friendly engineers on how to optimize your Android app for Chromebooks”, said the company on May 19, on its Google I/O website.
The Google laptops are known for affordable prices (a Chromebook can be had for $169) but also a limited selection of apps, thanks to their inability to run Windows or Mac OS programs.
Now, there will be two app stores for Chrome OS now: Google Play and the Chrome Web Store but Chrome Web Store is still going to remain the same and will continue to have the same themes and extensions. These devices run Google’s mega-lightweight Chrome OS, which is little more than a web browser.
The popularity of Chromebooks is driven strongly by demand from K-12 schools. When the update reaches Chromebook devices, users will get a notification. The majority of smartphones use the Android operating system. Use all the Android apps you want. As more and more kids use Chromebooks and iPhones and ignore Microsoft’s OS, we could be heading towards a Windows-less world. “Chromebooks outsold not just Macs/iPads but Windows as well”, said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD Group.
Google is basically taking its wildly successful smartphone operating system and smashing it together with Chrome OS to make it a more useful desktop operating system.
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It’s all powered by a containerized Android framework that runs on top of the Chrome OS.
