Soon “all” Android apps running on Chrome OS – digi.no

Google has long worked to make Android apps available for Chrome OS. Already in autumn 2014, several Android apps made available for Chrome OS.

But still, the selection is very limited. It may soon come to change.

During the Google I / O conference this week, Google announced that all app developers will soon have the opportunity to customize their apps to Chrome OS, and that these will be taken the use of Chromebook users a little later this year. An overview of the devices that receive such support, and approximately when, found here.

Requires customization

However, most applications will have to be optimized a bit before they will be able to work particularly well in Chrome OS. Among other things, it is far from all Chromebooks that have touchscreens. Therefore apps support mouse or trackpad instead. Besides missing Chromebooks often several sensors which today is almost standard in smart phones and tablets.

Android apps for Chrome OS will also have to be able to run in windows, instead of in full-screen mode. Admittedly, certain Android devices long had support to show at least two apps at once, but official support for multi-window mode comes first in Android N.

Multi-window support

Chromebook users this means that they can run several Android apps in removable windows on the screen, along with the desktop version of Chrome.

Chrome OS will support the same kind of app notifications Android and provide access to sharing files between apps and Chrome through Files app.

A basic feature of Chromebooks is that one should not lose data even if the device is lost. Everything should be available as soon as you log in to a new Chrome OS devices. But this presupposes that the application data is stored in the cloud. This is not a mandatory requirement for Android apps to Chrome OS, but it is strongly recommended.

Many Android apps support this already, but far from all – which is evident when one switches to another Android device.

Past Mac (USA)

Sales of Chrome OS devices is still rather limited, but they are doing pretty well in the United States. The Verge says IDC that in the first quarter of this year for the first time shipped more than Chromebooks Apple Macs in the US. It should have been delivered nearly two million Chromebooks, while Mac shipments in the United States was at 1.76 million.

It is especially in schools, in the first twelve steps, that Chromebooks are demanded.

Access the potentially large amounts of Android apps can make usefulness and thus the demand for Chromebooks larger. For app developers, this means access to a new market without having to make major changes. A review can be found here.