A decade ago, I posed a philosophical question about the ever-overlapping future of Android and ChromeOS. At the time, the question represented my thinking about these platforms from a slightly different perspective, with the notion of ChromeOS potentially taking over for Android at some theoretical point down the road.
The tables may have turned in the other direction, but the question itself feels freshly relevant today:
If all Android apps can eventually run on ChromeOS — and if ChromeOS evolves to look more like Android while web apps and Android apps grow increasingly similar in design — would you notice the difference between a phone running Android and a phone running Chrome?
Flip that question around, and you’ve got a fascinating slice of food for thought for this current situation. If all these factors come together and Google manages to make the surface-level Chromebook interface similar enough while maintaining each environment’s under-the-hood advantages — a tall order, to be sure — would you even realize if your Chromebook technically ran Android?
We may not know the answer for some time yet. This project is said to be a multi-year effort, and that’s providing all the still-unofficial details are accurate and the plans continue to push forward. (All tech companies test out ideas internally that never end up seeing the light of day, and Google in particular is notorious for developing concepts and then abandoning ’em before they ever turn into anything.)
But this sure is an interesting notion to chew over. And for the first time, it feels like there could be something to it beyond just misguided excitement.
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