First Android apps for Chrome OS are now available

Bringing its two “mobile” platforms closer together, Google has just revealed the pioneers of its “Android apps on Chrome OS” endeavor. Now you will be able to run Evernote, Duolingo, Vine, and Sight Words on any Chromebook, or any device that runs Google’s Chrome OS for that matter.

At Google I/O 2014 last June, Google made a rather surprising yet almost expected announcement that future versions of Chrome will be able to run Android apps, or some of them at least, natively, without the use of emulators or whatnot. Surprising, because Google has consistently insisted that there will be no merging of this Chrome OS and Android platforms, though technically this is more of a bridge rather than a merge. Expected because it seems only sensible for Google to exploit the larger Android software ecosystem rather then expecting Chrome developers to duplicate their apps for both operating systems.

Running Android apps on Chrome OS has been made possible by a project Google calls “App Runtime for Chrome”. In essence, this would be the same strategy that the likes of BlackBerry‘s OS 10 or Jolla‘s Sailfish would use to enable Android apps to run on their non-Android platforms without requiring a port or rewrite of the app. For Chrome OS, though, it would theoretically have all the advantages of a native Chrome app as well, including features like sandboxing. The runtime is still marked as Beta, so do expect some bumps along the way.

For now, that list of Android apps is pretty small, but Google promises more to come and is even opening that decision to public vote. While some of these apps may already have native Chrome OS versions, users might find the Android apps more familiar. The biggest benefit, of course, will be for the developers, who now no longer have to worry about having to write and maintain two (or more) versions of an app just to target Google’s two platforms.

SOURCE: Google