A Million Android Apps Will Be Running Soon on ChromeOS
A Million Android Apps Will Be Running Soon on ChromeOS
It is fair to say that Google knows first-hand the importance of a well-cultured ecosystem more than most. Hence, it wasn’t a surprise when it first unveiled its plans to bringing a few Android apps to its comparatively-new Chrome OS. Now it feels like it is ready to reach the prime time by porting all apps to its desktop OS.
The new feature was first noticed by the Reddit user and developer “TheWiseYoda”, who remembered seeing an option “Enable Android apps to run on your Chromebook” onscreen, before disappearing earlier than anything could be done.
Ars Technica and others were then able to replicate the code and enable the setting, opening a dedicated window “Google Play store now on your Chromebook”, with the option to choose “over a million apps to install and use on your Chromebook”.
However, it is also important to note than ARC can be made to run not only on Android or ChromeOS, but pretty much every computing platform out there, including Windows and Macs too. With a Native Client, Android apps could be made to run on all of these platforms using Chrome’s sandboxing technology.
The option to first port Android apps came in 2014 when Google unveiled its ARC Welder tool, which allowed porting of apps independently. It wasn’t as successful as Google could’ve hoped as only 29 apps eventually made their way.
Needless to say, this could be a pretty big reveal at this year’s Google I/O, though, we all could see this coming, right?
Image Credits: Ars Technicia
Sarmad Gardezi
Latest posts by Sarmad Gardezi (see all)
- Opera’s getting serious about adblocking with its new VPN for iPhone and iPad - May 9, 2016
- How to Buy a Cell Phone - May 9, 2016
- Facebook loses round one in privacy fight over photo tagging feature - May 9, 2016