Chrome OS is about to receive a major update later this year as Google has just made it official that they will be bringing the Play Store apps to Chrome OS.
Currently, there are a few Android apps that can work on a Chromebook. In the upcoming update for Chrome OS, users of Google’s desktop OS will gain access to the millions of apps found inside the Google Play Store.
Google has been busy trying to bring the Play Store to Chrome OS for a long time of course. Their first attempt using App Runtime for Chrome (ARC) and Native Client wasn’t exactly a success as it requires app developers to tinker on the apps in order to make it run on Chrome OS. With this attempt, Android on Chrome OS will now run in a Linux container. This would allow the apps to run without requiring additional work from developers, and it would not require any emulation as well. Both Chrome OS and Android will use the same kernel and resources on the Chrome OS machine.
Before you get too excited about the upcoming update though, do note that Google will be releasing the Play Store update to select Chromebooks first. The reasoning behind this decision is that Google is allowing Android developers to add improved keyboard support to their apps before the wider release. No release date was given as of yet, but Google has revealed that the Play Store update will be coming to the Chrome OS dev channel in June.
Source: TechCrunch