You may soon enjoy cross-functionality with Chromebooks and Android devices
Google introducing Chrome OS to Android is a game-changer for desktop mode functionalities on mobile phones and tablets. Soon, future Android builds might have built-in support for the VM launcher app needed for it to work.
The OS could offer a more familiar desktop experience on a large-screen Android phone, especially when connected to a monitor or keyboard. Imagine yourself using it for editing documents or browsing the web more comfortably. You could also run its apps and extensions directly, expanding what you can do on your phone. The OS for Android is still under development, and Google has codenamed it “ferrochrome”.
For now, it’s not available to the public. Tech Journalist, Mishaal Rahman, for Android Authority, has run an experiment. He managed to compile and run the Chrome OS build on his Pixel 7 Pro and 8 Pro phones. It worked quickly on the Pixel 7 Pro phone, but there was a bug that prevented completing the setup process on the Pixel 8 Pro.
Why is Chrome OS coming to Android now?
Back in 2016, Google’s Vice President of Android, Hiroshi Lockheimer, made it pretty clear that both Android and Chrome OS are to exist separately.
For us, there’s no point in merging [Chrome OS and Android]. They’re both successful. We just want to make sure that both sides benefit from each other.
Hiroshi Lockheimer, Former VP of Android
It made sense considering that they both cater to different user needs and devices. Chrome OS is optimized for web browsing and basic tasks on Google’s personal computers, whereas Android is a full-fledged mobile operating system for smartphones and tablets. Keeping them separate makes it easier for Google to focus optimization on each platform for their specific use case.
The company seems to have had a change of heart since then. Without prior hints or announcements of their intentions, they demonstrated the Chrome OS build on the Pixel 8 phone at a private event. They don’t seem to be in a hurry to let it out of the bag.
But who can blame them? There’s still a lot of work to be done. Running a whole operating system within another one could consume more resources than your phone already does. It’s typically nothing for a laptop designed to handle the processing power and memory. Hopefully, in the coming days, Google sheds more light on the progress of the development and we get to see them beyond Google Pixel phones.
