At its 2009 launch, Chrome OS seemed like a browser with a case of megalomania. Why would Google launch a second operating system when Android was on a path to become the world’s most popular operating system?
While everyday computing was certainly getting more browser-centric, web apps had not evolved to the point where it seemed wise to rely on them, especially on a laptop that often had no internet access.
Indeed, the Cr48, Google’s prototype first Chromebook, included a free gigabyte per month of Verizon cellular access. (Smoothing the tethering process with Android smartphones ultimately took its place.)
Nonetheless, while Google deserved credit for rethinking what a desktop OS could be, Chrome OS was born out of Google’s market necessity. PC companies such as Lenovo (the IdeaPad A10 convertible), HP (Slatebook 14 and x2), and Asus (Eee Pad Transformer) had tried releasing Android-based clamshells, convertibles, and detachables on Nvidia’s Tegra SoC with little success.
These laptops—which often had 10” displays—were more in the mold of netbooks, a quickly fading market fad. (That said, Chromebooks have become modern-day successors in terms of pricing, albeit with better ergonomics.) PC makers weren’t faring much better with Android-based tablets.
While Lenovo stayed in the game, Dell and HP fled the OS quickly. Laptop vendors had a tough time selling Android, but they could sell Chromebooks, especially for cheap, to K-12 school systems and students.
When apps attack
Of all the changes Chrome OS saw over the years, none were as significant as opening the platform to Android apps from the Google Play store. Now, the platform that had taken a bold stand against apps had access to millions of them. But it was no home run at first. Incompatibilities were common.
Even when Android apps ran, their touch-first interfaces could be awkward to navigate in Chrome OS’s mouse-driven world, a clash we would see repeated when Apple opened the Mac to iOS apps. (At least Android had long had full mouse support.)
Finally, while native apps often have more functionality than websites, mobile apps often have less. This was particularly true for Android apps running on Chromebooks as Android developers notoriously skimp on features, spending more of that development time on compatibility with endless hardware combinations.
Despite the limitations, with Apple keeping touchscreens off the Mac and Microsoft putting a serious mouse-touch fusion run on the back burner after Windows 8, Chrome OS continued to refine its touch become the best of the three main desktop OSes at blending mouse and touch interfaces.
Meanwhile, Android variants and extensions delivering a better desktop experience kept coming: Samsung DeX, Huawei Desktop Mode, Remix OS (acquired by Google), Sentio Desktop, Bliss OS (now in a “lockdown mode” as the project focuses on a fresh start) and, most recently, Google’s own desktop mode built into Android 16.
While Google’s take lacks the polish of third-party predecessors and requires Developer Mode. It appears to be the jumping-off point for how the combined operating systems will look.
In essence, it is an Android extension supporting a desktop-class Chrome browser. That’s another means to what Chrome OS offers today, which is a desktop-class Chrome browser supporting Android apps.
S-Mode and GBooks
As opposed to Microsoft, which has stuck Copilot’s icon into many wedges around the Windows user interface, Aluminium, which is due to appear around 2028, is positioned as being AI-first with Gemini at its core while Chrome OS is expected to continue on through the mid-2030s.
Still, questions remain. While most modern graphical user interfaces are similar enough that you can navigate them after learning just one, Chrome OS users would not feel at home in Android’s desktop mode.
Of course, neither would most Android phone and tablet users who have not ventured beyond full-screen apps, but tablets are hosting that evolution. There’s also the question of widgets, which would surely be supported in the new operating system.
There’s the technical issue of how locked down the hybrid OS would be.
Would it allow installation of sideloaded apps without the significant hoops you must jump through on today’s Chromebooks? Will there be something like Windows’ “S mode”? Will a new generation of Android apps boast the kind of features and performance that Chrome alone offers on Chromebooks? And will those apps’ interfaces scale down to phones?
And, finally, there are multiple challenges around branding. These range from how consumers would perceive an “Android” experience (assuming Google keeps that brand) on a laptop to perhaps renaming whole segments of devices—primarily Chromebooks but also Chromeboxes and the rare Chromebases (all-in-ones)—with the sunsetting of Chrome OS. Perhaps they become GBooks, GBoxes, and GBases.
In 2015, Microsoft shipped the first phones with the Windows 10 Mobile, a converged version of Windows that proved short-lived as Microsoft soon walked away from offering its own phone operating system before releasing and then abandoning its Surface Duo Android smartphones.
In contrast, Google has found success in laptops, albeit limited ones. If it manages the tricky transition well, Aluminium could pose more direct competition to Windows than Chrome OS ever did.
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