Android and ChromeOS. ChromeOS and Android. Has there ever been a extra enigmatic and question-creating couple within the mobile-tech universe?
From the get-go, Google’s two number one platforms were the topic of never-ending scorn and hypothesis. Other folks who do not in reality use a Chromebook and have not skilled ChromeOS since its earliest days have long been convinced that the platform serves no sensible aim and is destined for demise. For ages, the preferred narrative revolved across the perception that Google used to be gonna one way or the other “merge” the two right into a unmarried consolidated entity.
The true tale, after all, became out to be a lot more nuanced. For years now, Google’s been slowly however without a doubt bringing its two platforms together and aligning them to make ’em extra hooked up, constant, and suitable. The function, it kind of feels, is much less of a binary, one-or-the-other kind of choice and extra of a best-of-both-worlds, dual-pronged trail.
And now, it seems that that highway is ready to take a noteworthy new flip — one that might critically shake up a core a part of the consumer revel in on either side of the Android-ChromeOS equation.
All of it comes right down to apps and the way we find ’em. And if some fresh indicators on Android and ChromeOS alike are any indication, issues are about to get fascinating.
The ChromeOS app problem
Our tale begins at the ChromeOS aspect of the mobile-tech divide. Within the land o’ Chromebooks, for someone paying consideration, the query has shifted over the years from a snide “What are you able to even do on the ones issues?” to a much more intriguing “What cannot you do on ’em?”
To wit: Chromebooks as of late be offering a full-fledged desktop-caliber internet surfing surroundings. They can help you set up progressive web apps, Android apps, Linux apps, or even Windows apps, when you actually need to get wild. You’ll be able to use ’em as laptops, capsules, or anything else in between. ChromeOS could have began out being about sheer simplicity as a defining characteristic, however it is very a lot finished a 180 and transformed itself into the “everything” platform.
In apply, that is confirmed to be either a blessing and a curse. Chromebooks as of late are extremely succesful, as someone who in reality makes use of ’em can inform you, they usually be offering plenty of attractive advantages over extra conventional desktop setups. However on the similar time, all the ones chances have made it just about inconceivable to grasp the place to start out and what type of app to seek out for what aim.
For one instance, when you sought after to make use of the duty control app Todoist on a Chromebook, you should:
- Open the Todoist web page (or create a shortcut to that web page in your desktop)
- Set up the Todoist modern internet app from the Todoist web page
- Set up the Todoist Android app from the Google Play Retailer
- Set up the Todoist Chrome extension from the Chrome Internet Retailer
- Set up the Todoist Linux app from the Linux Snap Retailer
- Set up the Todoist Home windows app from the Todoist web page (equipped you have got a company-connected Chromebook with Windows access to be had)
Head spinning but? Mine positive is. It is a ridiculous labyrinth for normal customers to take on, or even people who may now not explicitly notice all the ones choices exist continuously in finding themselves dealing with vexing obstacles once they set up an app kind that is not totally optimum for his or her supposed aim.
Two years in the past, I first reported on clues that exposed a slowly shaping-up technique for solving this flaw — what I referred to on the time as Google’s “grand ChromeOS plan.” The speculation used to be virtually painfully easy: Google would place the Play Retailer as now not only a position for Android apps, as it is historically been, however as a broader one-stop store for more than one sorts of apps on Chromebooks — with the shop itself figuring out which app kind makes essentially the most sense for any given aim after which robotically putting in the fitting possibility for you.
We noticed early indicators of that plan shooting up on Chromebooks round that point, and Google later confirmed to me in an interview that it used to be certainly operating on such an effort. The function, two ChromeOS professionals informed me, used to be to show the Play Retailer into an all-purpose discovery software the place Chromebook house owners may just in finding no matter apps they wanted — together with even Linux apps, in sure cases — with no need to take into consideration the underlying generation.
Many months have handed since that unassuming get started. However this summer season, we are seeing some tantalizing indicators of development that might propel the plan ahead and lay the groundwork for a a lot more intuitive app-discovering revel in on ChromeOS — and, the large twist: additionally on Android.
The Android-ChromeOS app connection
So right here it’s: You would be forgiven for failing to note, however within the ChromeOS 104 replace that rolled out previous this month, Google quietly added within the talent to search out apps within the Play Retailer just by searching in your Chromebook’s launcher — the freshly redesigned window that pops up whilst you faucet your Chromebook’s The whole lot button (often referred to as the Seek or Launcher key).
One faucet, and growth: You’ll be able to in finding after which set up any app you wish to have proper there in the real running device, with no need to determine which supply is acceptable after which open up and seek thru that particular storefront.
JREasy. Streamlined. Consolidated. It is such a wise trade, the one baffling factor is why it is taken this lengthy for it to occur.
To make certain, the paintings this is some distance from completed. The Play Retailer itself nonetheless must in reality make stronger and floor all the ones other app varieties intelligently, in some way that is smart for the Chromebook surroundings. (As of now, that occurs most effective with an excessively restricted set of explicit techniques.) However now, a minimum of, the root is entering focal point — and the theory of ChromeOS itself changing into the app discovery mechanism and getting rid of the want to have interaction with any explicit app retailer is beginning to take form.
Now for the actually intriguing phase: In Android 13 on its self-made Pixel telephones, Google is also now experimenting with surfacing app effects from the Play Retailer as a part of the main house display screen seek device — as soon as once more from proper inside the real running device. It is the similar elementary idea, in different phrases, most effective translated into Android phrases. And it, too, has the possible to result in a good broader rethinking of what the Play Retailer represents and what an “Android app” even is.
After I first wrote about Google’s grand ChromeOS plan, I finished with a little bit of an speculative “what if?”-style state of affairs. Cross, pass, System Quoting System:
Imagine this: Google’s been experimenting with the theory of modern internet apps on Android for some time now. The corporate already makes it conceivable for builders to embed such techniques inside conventional Android app buildings after which put the ones into the Play Retailer. How some distance of a jump would it not be to begin providing up standalone modern internet apps without delay in position of Android apps for telephones, too, in cases the place that’d be optimum?
I’m going to inform you this: I’ve some standalone modern internet apps alone telephone, and … they are unusually delightful to make use of — in some way that just about makes you put out of your mind you are not the usage of an ordinary, local Android app. Simply sayin’.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
As soon as once more, interesting issues are taking place on the intersection of Google’s two number one platforms. And now, the muse is flowing freely in both directions — from Android to ChromeOS and from ChromeOS again to Android.
The one actual query is how lengthy it will take for this newest piece of the puzzle to fall into position — and the way lengthy it will take for the Android- and Chromebook-carrying lots to conform to an entire new frame of mind about apps.
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