Report: Google To Fold Chrome OS Into Android (wsj.com)

An anonymous reader writes: According to a report at the Wall Street Journal (paywalled) Google plans to merge its Chrome operating system into Android. Google engineers have already been working on this transition for two years; the company expects to have a functioning preview next year, and a finished product in 2017. "The move is also an attempt by Google to get Android running on as many devices as possible to reach as many people as possible. The operating system runs phones, tablets, watches, TVs and car infotainment systems. Adding laptops could increase Android's user base considerably. That should help Google woo more outside developers who want to write apps once and have them work on as many gadgets as possible, with little modification." This doesn't mean Chrome OS is on its way out. According to public statements from Google execs, it will continue to exist and see active development.

Comments

I'm conflicted about this

[water-and-sewer]

This is going to affect me and I'm not sure yet what I think about it. I use both Android and ChomeOS. I bought the Chromebook expecting to wipe it and put Linux on it, but found instead that it was a decent little laptop with spectacular battery life and a simple interface. Basically the chrome browser plus a keyboard, and I find myself putting down the Android tablet and reaching for it whenever I have some serious typing to do (like a Slashdot post for example). It's got a terminal extension that allows me to SSH into remote boxes and that plus the browser cover 85% of my use cases (no good Usenet client is its biggest shortcoming for me). Wish it had more apps, but for the things I use a computer/keyboard for, it's basically good enough.

In my pocket the Android phone (Samsung Note 3) is my daily workhorse. Love it, but it's not as simple as ChromeOS, no doubt about it.

I think we all knew this day was coming. ChromeOS needs a better app ecosystem and Android will provide it. And Android will be good on a laptop with a keyboard. But I'm somewhat leery about this. Just wish they'd provided a couple more things with ChromeOS.

Guess we'll find out soon enough. Point is: I expected not to like ChromeOS and found out I liked it quite a bit: terminal client, easy networking, dead simple peripheral configuration, file manager, and a great browser: these days I don't need a hell of a lot more than that in a secondary machine (meaning, I do my graphics, scanning, etc. on the desktop).

Re:I'm conflicted about this

[pushing-robot]

It will definitely be interesting to see the state of PCs in five years, with Google pushing Android everywhere now. Android has enough of a software library to be usable for a lot of people, even a decent selection of games; lacking the Wintel tax, dirt cheap boxes could finally fulfill the Chromebook's goal of stealing the low-end home PC market from Microsoft.

The business market isn't quite as sewn up by Microsoft as it used to be, with the BYOD and cloud movements pushing a lot of applications off the desktop. IBM is moving to Macs and Office is now available for almost any platform; soon we'll reach the point where rank-and-file office users can use pretty much cheap box with a mouse and keyboard.

On the other hand, Microsoft is repositioning themselves toward the profitable high end with the recent rise of premium 'Ultrabooks'; historically this market has been Apple's domain, but Apple seems to have grown complacent in their profits and their PC lines are overpriced and lagging on updates. Still, with $200B in cash Apple could do pretty much anything they wanted if they felt the need.

Again, the next five years will be interesting.

Re:I'm conflicted about this

[Half-pint HAL]

The app ecosystem's the thing, and while many can survive with Google Docs, some of us need offline tools. If this spurs a proper overhaul of LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice to a lightweight, Android-friendly version, we could be on the cusp of something very interesting indeed.

Re:I'm conflicted about this

[Idou]

Hey, with crouton, you can literally have the best of both worlds at the same time! (no wiping required!)

Also, it is probably too soon to assume there will be much, if any, negative impact on end users. Seems likely you will be able to continue your current habits with the added bonus of having all (not just a small subset of) android apps potentially available on your Chrome book.

Re:I'm conflicted about this

[nine-times]

It's not clear to me that this needs to create a big practical difference for you. I guess I don't really know what's been going on with ChromeOS lately, but my understanding is that both Android and ChromeOS are basically Linux, so merging the system codebase itself doesn't need to make a big difference for users. They could even potentially use the same display system across both platforms while customizing the UI to fit each. ChromeOS could still be, essentially, a simplified Linux distro where the UI is mostly just just Chrome browser.

On the other hand, it would possibly make it easier for Google to update/maintain both systems if they shared a codebase. It would also possibly make it easier for Android developers to create desktop versions of their phone apps, in cases where that made sense.

So all in all, it seems like this is probably a good thing. Not that they couldn't screw it up.

Re:I'm conflicted about this

[Lumpy]

Only for luddites.

MANY fast moving companies do not use Office at all. I know of several that use all chromebooks for the employees and Google's offerings for a productivity suite. they save a crapload as they no longer have to maintain user IT hardware. you broke a chromebook? here's a new one, you are back to 100% productivity in 10 minutes. Don't need a portable? here s a chromebox on your desk, the receptionist uses the web interface software on the backroom servers. 99% of all CRM software is webserver based anyways, so it's a no brainer. and yes you can do docs and spreadsheets offline on a chromebook. plus the chromebooks have hard drives in them so they also have their google drive documents local.

Honestly only the crusty old companies still rely on Microsoft Office.

Re:I'm conflicted about this

[Half-pint HAL]

Or, you know, Office

I'm all for alternatives, but Office compatibility tends to make or break computing devices.

Except that MS Office for Android isn't feature-complete. If LO/OO can reengineer the full suite to trim out the fat and make them fully tablet friendly, there would be something there.

Re:I'm conflicted about this

[itsenrique]

ChromeOS is very fast right now because it is so lightweight. So the advantage is that you can get reasonable speeds out of cheaper hardware. At least that's one advantage.

Re:I'm conflicted about this

[Pumpkin Tuna]

Are you referring to being able to use Google Docs while offline. Because you can do that.

Re:I'm conflicted about this

[BillTheKatt]

I agree 100%. I tried ChromeOS expecting to hate it. I mean come on, an "OS" that was nothing but a browser? But it is actually a very simple, decent OS. Fantastic for Grandma or anyone else that needs just something simple. It's totally fast, and does all the basics you could need it to. Office? No, not happening, unless you want a "browser" version of it. But I was surprised how much I liked it.

Now hold on thar

[drinkypoo]

Report: Google to Fold Chrome OS Into Android

Bull. Shit. That is not what the article says. It says they're going to offer Android-based laptops alongside the ChromeOS ones. Of course, such things already exist. I have in front of my an Asus Transformer Prime TF201 running KatKiss v28. It's got a touchpad, it's got multiwindow...

Re:Now hold on thar

[squiggleslash]

That makes little sense though. That'd mean two competing, incompatible, lines of laptops. And folding ChromeOS into Android should be relatively easy, given the common kernel - it's already been done with Ubuntu and Android, and I believe Motorola shipped a phone at one point with some GNU/Linux distribution running with Android, where Android was the core UI on the phone, but plugging it into a laptop cradle gave you a proper GNOME-ish desktop with your apps available in both places.

I wonder what's really going on? Quite simply: I don't believe the article if it's implying two lines of laptop, but I don't know what's going on at Google and while I can make intelligent guesses as to the future of Android and ChromeOS, I can't say for definite what direction they'd want to take both operating systems in.

Re:Now hold on thar

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the same article as the rest of us?

"Google engineers have been working for roughly two years to combine the operating systems and have made progress recently, two of the people said. The company plans to unveil its new, single operating system in 2017, but expects to show off an early version next year, one of the people said."

That's definitely what the article says. Whether it's right or not is another matter, but that's what it says. It also definitely does not say that Google are going to continue offering ChromeOS laptops alongside Android ones;

"Chrome OS will remain as an open source operating system that other companies can use to make laptops, and Google engineers will continue maintaining it. However, Google’s focus will be on extending Android to run on laptops, according to one of the people."

Note the "other companies" bit. If any other company wants to take up ChromeOS, they'll be able to, but Google will be moving on, according to the article.

Re:Now hold on thar

[serviscope_minor]

I have [one] ... it's got multiwindow...

There's something deeply alarming about the fact that you feel the need to tell us that your laptop has multiple windows in 2015. Not about you, about the fact that it's a thing worth saying at all!

I mean XWindows version 11 (still in use and ABI backwards compatible with programs written then) is around 28 years old, and still going strong. Windows 2.0 (the first proper version as it had overlapping windows) is also 28 years old and its descendants are still going strong. The Amiga came out in 1985 he archimedes in 1987 (what is it with 1987??), Windows 3 in 1990 (I think this is a point when GUIs really started to take off due to the dominance of the PC platform, even if all the UNIX, Amiga, Acorn and Mac users sneered rightly in disgust), the Macintosh GUI in 1984, and the accessibly cheap Mac Classic in 1990.

I mean Multi-window GUIs have been commonly available for quite a long time.

It says something appaling about the state of computer development that it seems necessary to specify that a new laptop has multiple windows in 2015. I think this is why so many people in the computer industry are deeply suspicious of change. It's not that we hate change or improvement, we hate churn and even worse we hate when something perfectly good gets "deprecated" and the replacement mysteriously forgets all the lessons learned in the last 30 years and adds them back belatedly and half-arsed.

I mean remember the copy/paste debacle (i.e. it flat out didn't exist) on mobile devices? How long did it take before it worked at all? Does they do anything more than plain text yet? Just for reference, the ICCCM, part of X11 was hammered out in 1987 and that contains a really rather reasonable, simple, easy to understand and extensible method for copy/paste of arbitrary and rich data.

It's kinda like someone fell asleep in 1980, woke up in 2005 and remade a 1980s era computer with modern technology and the fanciest graphics available.

Zawinski's cascade of attention deficit teenagers barely scratches the surface.

Re:Now hold on thar

[drinkypoo]

That makes little sense though. That'd mean two competing, incompatible, lines of laptops.

Microsoft had two competing, incompatible product lines going at once, why can't Google? The only reason ChromeOS existed to begin with is that Android wasn't good enough to be a host for the full version of Chrome. Now that mobile Chrome is reaching feature-parity with desktop Chrome, there's no reason to maintain both, so you're right; it doesn't make sense... unless you consider where we are now, and how we got here. This isn't like some google webapp they can abandon because nobody paid for it. People paid for those ChromeOS-based devices, and they expect some ongoing support.

Google will overlap the two operating systems for as long as it makes sense, which will probably be for several years. They will continue to ship ChromeOS until they've worked out the details. Then they'll terminate ChromeOS, but it won't happen especially soon.

Re:Now hold on thar

[drinkypoo]

I'm sorry, but I'm having difficulty remembering any time in Microsoft's history when that happened. They've had multiple operating systems, but I don't recall any time when they tried to sell them to the same market.

Windows and Windows CE, then Windows and Windows RT and Windows Phone. All consumer operating systems, none of them run one another's software (though there is some .NET overlap, it was never dominant in Windows CE-land — native apps ruled.)

ChromeOS isn't some crud filled open operating system with several generations of APIs, where everyone from John Carmack to Alexander Kowalski has developed native binary applications. It's a locked down system designed to run Web Apps, and it even uses the same core browser as Android.

It does not. "Desktop" (including ChromeOS) and mobile (Android) Chrome are very different beasts; they share much, but they are not the same thing. If they were, ChromeOS would never have existed.

There is literally nothing whatsoever to stop Google from shipping Android in its place beyond deciding on how a desktop UI should work.

There is, but you have to understand that mobile and normal Chrome are not the same animal to understand that.

Once that UI is ready (a prerequisite for shipping Android laptops one would think), there's no point any more in ChromeOS.

You haven't spent much time with Chrome for Android, have you? It is not a substitute for the full-fat version of Chrome yet. It's been getting steadily closer to being that, though. The time when it will be is visible. In fact, I've been talking about this here on Slashdot since the early days of these projects, when people were originally asking why ChromeOS and Android were both things. I have a TF201 right here in front of me and use Chrome on it somewhat regularly, and I can tell you that it's still not ready to replace ChromeOS. It will get there, but it is not there.

So again, what's the point? Why would Google ship competing operating systems? Nobody else does this.

Because full Chrome and Android Chrome are not the same thing, and no amount of believing that they are will make them so. Only additional development time will do that. I take this as something of an announcement that they will attempt to make this happen more rapidly, but Google is not dumb enough not to leave themselves some options, which is why they're not talking about shitcanning ChromeOS very soon. It's still making them money, it doesn't cost them much to do since they don't have to write the OS and are already developing the browser, so there's no rush to fold it up.

Re:Now hold on thar

[drinkypoo]

My first laptop had a 640x480 monochrome 9.5" screen. I was very productive running multiple windowed apps on it.

Yes yes, my first multitasking, multiwindowed system was an Amiga hooked up to a TV, don't talk to me about resolution. Except, that actually proves my point, because the Amiga actually had a whole concept of rapidly-switchable screens because it didn't have enough resolution to really make sensible use of multiple applications side-by-side at once, so you needed some way to rapidly switch between applications which used the entire display. The Macintosh of the era also was full-screen centric, for the same reason; it had even less pixels, at 512x384. (ISTR getting around 640x400 pixels out of my Amiga, albeit very blurry and flickery ones.)

It's not the screen size or resolution which makes it hard to multitask on phones and tablets. It's the clumsy navigation you get with a touch interface - too easy to tap the the wrong spot or to "click" when you meant to move.

Well, having actually done it (since, as I said, I actually own a device on which multiwindow is working and have personal experience with it) I can say that the screen size and resolution do make it hard to multitask side-by-side on phones and tablets. And, for that matter, on netbooks. I three of those too, and the high-res one is 720p. Especially for the EEE701, it by far makes the most sense to let applications have the whole screen, preferably without any decoration at all.

Multitasking on a small low-res screen is absolutely not a problem if you have precise inputs like a keyboard, mouse, and even touchpoint/trackpad

Yes yes, I have all of that on my TF201, but the truth is that I switch between apps and don't use multiwindow because the screen is so small and the resolution is so low.

Security

[puddingebola]

Isn't this one of those things where they make a product with an emphasis on security, and then as it gains some popularity, people want more features, more functionality, and so they start adding those features and functionality, and then they just start turning it more and more into Android, and then the security holes and malware problems with Android start to appear in Chrome OS, and then the advantages that Chrome OS had vanish? Isn't it one of those things? Is it really impossible to just have two different platforms with emphasis on different strengths? I think the marketing people are doing this. I blame them.

The name "Android"

[invid]

I really hate the fact that the name of the dominant OS is "Android". This is going to be really confusing once we start building real androids.

Bob: Hey Mary, what OS do you run on your android?

Mary: Android.

Bob: Yeah, on your android, what OS?

Mary: Android!

Bob: Yes! I'm talking about your android! What OS is running on it?

Mary: Third base!

How exactly would ChromeOS "fold" into Android?

[LichtSpektren]

Chrome is already available for Android. As soon as the desktop extensions and apps are available for it, then that's pretty much all of ChromeOS right there. What the heck does it mean for ChromeOS to "fold" into Android?

Re:About time really

[DrXym]

The thing is, Android *does* run with a mouse and a keyboard and has done so for a very long time. Look at the likes of the ASUS transformer tablets which have been out for a long time. Lots of office apps exist on Android. I even recall plugging a mouse / keyboard into a MIPS set top box running Android some 6 or 7 years ago.

That said, keyboard / mouse support has always been basic. Part of the reason for this is that the Google didn't push the support and therefore many apps don't do much with it. If Google released a desktop mode for Android and APIs for hotkeys, tooltips, menus, tabbing, cursor shapes etc. then it's likely that devices in those form factors would be more prevalent and more apps like browsers, word processors etc. would add decent support for it.

It would certainly be less effort than writing and supporting an entirely different OS as Google have done with such limited success.

Chromebook is secure

[perpenso]

What is the advantage of a Chromebook over, say, a tablet with a keyboard? I'm curious, as it sounds like the latter would cover your use case there... I don't use either so I don't know.

Chromebook is locked down and far more secure that Android. Want to do online banking, a chromebook would be a far better idea than a tablet or a PC.

Google has denied this report

[swillden]

http://www.theguardian.com/tec...