Chrome OS Will Finally Run Android Apps in the Background (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: While it's no longer a novelty to run Android apps on your Chromebook, that doesn't mean they run well. To date, most of those apps pause when you switch away -- fine for a phone, but not what you'd expect on a computer with a multi-window interface. However, they're about to become far more functional. Chrome Unboxed has learned that the Chrome OS 64 beta introduces Android Parallel Tasks, which lets Android apps run at full bore regardless of what you're doing. You could watch a video in a mobile app while you're surfing the web, or take a break from a mobile game without jarring transitions. There's no guarantee that Android Parallel Tasks will reach the stable Chrome OS 64, so you might not want to plan a purchase around the feature.

Comments

Re:Or

[jellomizer]

We had Multi-tasking consumer level OS for a while now. I am actually surprised to hear that this was an issue.
Perhaps I should find the DesqView app for Chrome?

"Write once, run anywhere."

[emil]

For such an amazingly portable runtime platform, it's curious how rarely I see operational .APKs on non-Android platforms.

This was not quite the panacea that we were led to believe so long ago.

OS development hit a brick wall 20 years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

We often talk about the so-called "AI winter", where artificial intelligence stagnated for decades. Even today we're not out of it, with the most advanced "artificial intelligence" around just tending to be complex statistical models that give desirable outputs, rather than anything resembling actual cognition.

I think we've been in an "OS winter" since about 1995 or 1996. That was the last time we saw anything truly innovative when it comes to OSes, with the release of Windows 95. That was the last time we had an OS release that improved the user experience in any significant way.

Windows 10 is clearly just a devolution of the Windows 95 model, where Windows 95's simple and effective start menu and taskbar have been muddled up.

macOS is just some minor improvements to NeXTSTEP, which dates back to the 1980s.

Linux of today, with crap like systemd, PulseAudio, GNOME 3, and Wayland forced on its users, is actually a big step backward from what it was in 1995.

iOS and Android are effectively just prettier Palm OS-style systems, where you poke them with your finger instead of a stylus.

Embedded and realtime OSes haven't improved much since the 1990s.

If you had told people from 1997 about Chrome OS, and said it'd be in use in 2018, they would have thought that you were full of shit! They couldn't comprehend why anyone would waste their time with an OS that's so limited, especially compared to what was common in 1997.

OS development has totally stagnated. There hasn't been much forward progress since the mid 1990s, and there has actually been a lot of backward regression.

Re:OS development hit a brick wall 20 years ago.

[iamgnat]

OS development has totally stagnated. There hasn't been much forward progress since the mid 1990s, and there has actually been a lot of backward regression.

While it might seem that way, I think there are 2 major points you are missing and you are under valuing the differences between then and now.

The first is that until the late 90s consumer OSes were significantly limited by the hardware they ran on. There were very real limits to memory, disk space, and bandwidth. The "great jumps" during that time happened around significant hardware changes. The last was the time of the Pentium which unlocked the path to the resources we now have available. While we still have physical limitations, they are so high that the OS vendors are not constrained like they once where. This allows for incremental changes which are less WOW inducing than the earlier era where 2MB of RAM was something to be excited about.

Secondly, just what is really missing from an OS these days that should be at the basic OS level? The only thing I can really think of that would be really nice is to kernel updates that don't require a reboot. Beyond that peripherals haven't significantly changed in 20+ years (e.g. USB is still serial based and everything else continues to fall by the wayside). So beyond tweaks for stability and performance, what's left?

I also think you under value what has changed under the covers. I was playing with Linux back in 94 and there is no question it is a much better OS now than it was then. Hardware compatibility isn't remotely the concern that it once was. Similarly the differences in Win 95 to Win 10 or NextSTEP to the current OS X are equally significant and important. It's just that much of the change is behind the scenes and not as noticeable (usually deliberately so).

It's also worth noting that the UI is not part of the OS itself, but just an extension running on top of it. It's a distinction many don't seem to understand, but it is an important one. Similarly, however, beyond tweaks to meet the aesthetics of the day, what significant changes are needed to the UIs these days?

Re:OS development hit a brick wall 20 years ago.

[iamgnat]

Android is a BIG step backwards in operating systems.

Based on the rest of your post, the problem is more that you are trying to use the wrong tool for the job than a specific fault of the OS. You think trying to use iOS as a desktop OS would net you better results? They were specifically designed to be run on limited hardware (compared to laptops and desktops) and relatively small screens.

It isn't self hosting unless you chroot it, and then, you can't get a native windowed program running on it, unless you use VNC to open a session to the chroot.

While the idea of running Android on a real computer is cool and even somewhat useful, you're asking it to do something it wasn't designed for. This isn't some failing of the OS.

It's 2017 and Android STILL cannot do multitasking properly: My android phone has 1GiB of RAM. Why the fsck can it not put multiple windows on the screen (not just 2, but like, 10) and let me work on more than one thing at once?

Maybe because there isn't enough screen space on a phone/tablet to have 10 different applications visible in a meaningful manner?

Every app runs in fullscreen, and actually stops running (or changes to a 'background state') when you switch to another one.

You would be crying like a baby if it did what you wanted and then your phone was A) hot as hell and B) the battery was dead in 10 minutes from all the stuff you switched out of, but forgot to kill eating up the CPU and killing the battery.

Windows 95 let me put as many windows on the screen as I want

Have you considered the extremely odd possibility that this is because it was ... wait for it ... DESIGNED AS A DESKTOP OS???

Android can't mount NFS shares and the state of memory-card management is a mess. You can't even symlink directories without rooting it and mucking around. Why isn't that in the native UI?

Again. Phone/Tablet OS. Not desktop. Different worlds.

Every. Bloody. Thing. Is. In. Java. Why can't I write a program in scheme, and run it on Android?

Yeah I've never gotten that myself. As long as there is a tool chain to do the correct byte compiling, it shouldn't matter. Different language, but the same applies to iOS too.

Android doesn't support IPv6 properly. I'm pretty sure Windows 98 did. Maybe Windows 95 did, as well.

I don't know about Andriod's compatibility, but I know you certainly have no clue what you are talking about. Given that Win95 was released a few months before the first IPv6 RFC (1883), no it most certainly did not support IPv6. Similarly as Win98 was released a few months before 1883 was superseded by 2460 which is when it started to actually mean something to the world, it did not support it either.

Regardless, this will be the Year of IPv6! right after it's the Year of the Linux Desktop! ...

Oh, and here's the biggest step back of all: 99% of all android phones don't even give root access. It's an OS that you can't become root on. How is that a step forward in any conceivable sense of the word?

100% of iOS devices don't allow you to become root. What's your point?

Oh. Wait. You're trying to use it in a manner that it wasn't really designed for.

Stop being an idiot and using things in a manner that they were not meant to be and then complaining when they don't work as well as tools actually designed for what you are trying to do.

Use a real OS

[WaffleMonster]

Who cares? Nobody is impressed with barely functional crap powered by the worlds most prolific cyber stalking company.

Re:Give the option to run full fat Linux apps

[squiggleslash]

You can do that already by putting it in developer mode. The concept behind Chromebooks is that they're heavily sandboxed by default, so the environment is safe and you don't have to worry about viruses or other security issues (beyond those inherent in sharing your data with Google.) Android apps are relatively easy to fit into that idea, raw ix86 binaries not so much.

Re:Or

[erice]

You could just use a real OS, like Windows 10.

And this is related how exactly? There are apps for Android that do not have a desktop equivalent. No web site. No app for any desktop OS. Neither Windows 10 nor desktop* Linux run android apps either without heroic efforts. Being able to run Android apps is a useful addition and completely orthogonal with a desire to run conventional desktop apps.

*Technically, Android is Linux since it runs a Linux kernel.

Re:Or

[fph il quozientatore]

Whatsapp.

Non-android apks

[DrYak]

it's curious how rarely I see operational .APKs on non-Android platforms.

Jolla's Sailfish OS,
Samsung's Tizen,
and Blackberry
(and of course TFA's ChromeOS) :
all have Android compatibility layers.

Microsoft Windows made an attempt but didn't succeed. (WSL is what they managed to salvage out of the remnant of their failed attempt).

Re:Non-android apks

[xvan]

Do any of them work well enough?
Because APKs on chrome OS sucks, and it's the same company backing the same product on both platforms.

Re:Or

[execthts]

Poweramp. INCLUDING the direct volume control feature.

working

[DrYak]

Do any of them work well enough?

Myriad's Aliendalvik anrdoid layer on Jolla's Sailfish OS more or less works.

The draw back is that it's still based around the "almost not Java" Dalvik JVM-like JIT engine, (well not exactly. It's Myriad's own variation of Dalvik)
so it's still stuck in the world of Android 4.4 Kitkat (so no support for Android 5.0 Lollipop only apps).

The other draw back is that Sailfish OS it selfs lacks drivers and frameworks for some hardware feature (e.g.: finger print scanners. There's a raw device showing up in /dev/ but that's about it), or doesn't have the necessary wrapper to forward other stuff from Gnu/linux world to Android (e.g.: bluetooth. Sailfish OS has a functioning BlueZ, but no wrapper to provide it with the BlueDroid api used on Android Apps. Meaning that some device work - e.g.: bluetooth speakers are handled by bluez and pulseaudio, and android simply see an audio-out and music correctly plays in Spotify, etc. - but app needing low-level acces don't - e.g.: the manufacturer's app to change the configuration of the same bluetooth speaker doesn't work).

Still it runs the majority of apps I've tried on it, (including common stuff like WhatsApp, Instagram, Skype, Messenger, Firefox, my bank's 2 factor app, etc.)

Jolla also has an Aptoid repository with curated APKs that are known to be compatible with Alien Dalvik (the Netflix version available there does work).

I have no experience with BlackBerry's compatibility layer.
I have no experience with Tizen's layer either, but I've read good reviews.

Regarding Windows, Microsoft never managed to get it to work, hence the change of focus to WSL (Windows Service for Linux - a.k.a.: "Bash in Windows").

Re:Or

[erice]

I like the part where you don't actually name any apps with no desktop equivalent to reduce the attack surface of that bullshit claim.

Start with dating apps. There are many that have no desktop apps but just among the ones I have used:

Hinge
Happn
Tinder (until very recently and the recently added website is so very buggy that is little point in using it)

Waze went years before it finally added a functional website.

It's not a long list but then, I don't use many mobile apps. If I did I'm sure I could find a lot more.

HTTP

[Tenebrousedge]

When was the last time you typed out an HTTP request by hand? What are you doing wrong with your life, that this is a necessary feature?

Re:The year...

[PixetaledPikachu]

of Chrome OS on the desktop?

Well, it does use Linux Kernel...