Google has been hinting at merging Chrome OS and Android into one operating system in one way or another for years. It’s also suggested that it won’t do that.
While the operating systems are hardly one now, Google has indeed taken another step in a somewhat similar direction by enabling Android app compatibility with Chrome OS.
At Google I/O this summer, Google showed this off:
On Thursday, Google announced the “first set of Android apps coming to a Chromebook near you.”
That set includes Duolingo, Evernote, Sight Words, and Vine.
“Chromebooks were designed to keep up with you on the go—they’re thin and light, have long battery lives, resume instantly, and are easy to use. Today, we’re making Chromebooks even more mobile by bringing the first set of Android apps to Chrome OS,” Google says.
“These first apps are the result of a project called the App Runtime for Chrome (Beta), which we announced earlier this summer at Google I/O. Over the coming months, we’ll be working with a select group of Android developers to add more of your favorite apps so you’ll have a more seamless experience across your Android phone and Chromebook,” it adds.
Additionally, a Google spokesperson told Ars Technica, “The app code is all running on top of the Chrome platform, specifically inside of Native Client. In this way the ARC (Android Runtime for Chrome) apps run in the same environment as other apps you can download from the Chrome Web Store, even though they are written on top of standard Android APIs. The developers do not need to port or modify their code, though they often choose to improve it to work well with the Chromebook form factor (keyboard, touchpad, optional touchscreen, etc).”
Google is actually asking users which apps they’d most like to see on their Chromebooks. If you use Chrome OS, you might want to consider weighing in with this form.
Image via Google