
Google Play Store and “over a million apps” could be headed to Chrome OS - ingve
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/04/it-looks-like-the-google-play-store-is-headed-to-chrome-os/
======
baldfat
Chrome books are the best college laptops for the vast majority of students.
The ability to have a ton of apps and then have the Microsoft suite on an App
could really over come a few hiccups which is normally based on professors'
issue of only using Word.

THE ONE ISSUE is Printing. I have to help my daughter setting up cloud
printing all the time

~~~
mark_l_watson
As a computer scientist, it is embarrassing to admit this, but I have given up
on wireless printing. My wife and I now physically walk to the printer and
plug in via a USB cable.

~~~
tn13
So true. Printing, copying technology seems so out of date and stone age like
compared to other consumer electronics. Why cant I jsut print something off my
iphone on any generic printer ? Why do printers come up with so much junkware
? Why are the prices of ink so damn expensive ?

I think Apple, MS or someone else must come up with a good printer and kill
rest of the printer industry.

~~~
vidarh
Printers are crap because most people don't need to print much, so most
printers that are sold are basically the equivalent of the shaving stick
that's sold only to enable the sales of replacement razor blades (ink
cartridges).

Ink is expensive because again: Most people don't print much, and most people
have printers that that have some very specific ink cartridge and will blindly
buy the manufacturer brand ink because it's easier that way.

If you print much, pay for a reasonable laser printer, and your experience and
cost per page are both much better.

------
kris-s
Maybe I'm overestimating the potential success, but it staggers me that Google
only released their Pixel laptops with ChromeOS. I would absolutely buy it if
it had Ubuntu pre-installed on it with working drivers (and I think a _ton_ of
developers would finally have a legitimate competitor to a MacBook Pro).

~~~
untog
I don't think Google is really interested in providing that, though. I doubt
they make a lot of money on the hardware - it's all about the software,
mindshare for ChromeOS.

I also think you overestimate how popular a machine like that would be. Dell
offers Ubuntu laptops and they certainly haven't taken over the planet.

~~~
zxcvcxz
I've never seen an advertisement for a Dell computer running Ubuntu though.
I've seen a ton of ads for the chromebook.

If google ran an ad campaign for chromebooks running Ubuntu I think it could
easily compete with chrome os.

~~~
jethro_tell
What do they get from that?

I don't think they want to compete with chromeOS, I think they want to sell
chromeOS.

The only person who would benefit from that is you which is why people buy
them and install ubuntu.

I use a chrome book for my daily driver. I used to want a ubuntu machine with
chrome but after a little effort and getting a setup of crouton that works for
me, I actually just want a browser with a shell. Which part is primary and
which is secondary is really semantics when I get to working. I do everything
in the browser or the shell with the exception of password safe which is an
android app run inside the browser. I'd also like the android kindle app but
that is blocked form working for some reason (I believe on amazon's side).

------
curt15
Since MS office runs on Android, could this indirectly bring Office to desktop
Linux?

~~~
plexicle
Indeed. And also big platform games-- consider Hearthstone (Blizzard), etc.

~~~
kibwen
You'll have to expand on the etc., Hearthstone is the only "professional-
grade" game that I can name on Android (and even that lagged months behind the
iOS version, which lagged months behind the PC client). I keep waiting for
gaming to take off on Android, but it's just so inundated with P2W garbage
(cue heated discussion over Hearthstone's own P2W status).

~~~
bitmapbrother

      Borderlands
      Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
      Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings
      Valiant Hearts : The Great War
      SoulCalibur
      Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
      DOOM 3 BFG Edition
      FINAL FANTASY IX
      Half Life 2: Episode 1
      Half Life 2: Episode 2
      The Talos Principle
      Broken Age
      Portal
      Goat Simulator
    

I could go on, but if Hearthstone is the only "professional-grade" game that
you can name on Android then you clearly haven't even bothered to look.

~~~
Nullabillity
Borderlands definitely isn't on the Play store, unless you're talking about
_Tales from the_ Borderlands, which is something entirely different.

Portal and the Talos Principle do seem to be on there, but only for specific
Nvidia chipsets.

And calling Hearthstone "professional-grade" is a pretty big stretch as well.

~~~
bitmapbrother
Correct. Borderlands 2 is a coming soon title.

~~~
thrownblown
I play Borderlands 2 right now on my Nvidia Android TV. Looks about as good as
the xbox 360.

Goat simulator is far from professional grade (on purpose).

------
smrtinsert
I have a better idea, how about we just kill ChromeOS and call it an Android
device.

~~~
msh
And replace one of the most secure operating systems with one of the most
insecure... :(

~~~
bitmapbrother
And yet the number of CVE's raised against Android is far below that of iOS or
Windows.

~~~
dsp1234
This isn't a good metric unfortunately. A much more realistic metric is % of
devices with unpatched CVEs. With iOS updates and Windows updates, most
devices get their vulnerabilities patched (assuming the vendor addresses it at
all), unless specific action is taken not to update them. However, most
android devices are not updated past a few minor Android versions, and once
the carrier no longer provides patches, there is often no way for a normal
user to patch the OS at all.

So Windows could theoretically have 100x the number of vulnerabilities over
time, but if they are fixed and autopatched, then those systems can still be
more secure than a system that doesn't get patches past the first year.

~~~
magicalist
This seems irrelevant because if ChromeOS machines became Android ones, Google
would still control the updates and so they be like Nexus devices and would
always get updates.

~~~
tauntz
Nexus devices are getting updates for just around 2 years. All the older
devices (including my dear Galaxy Nexus) are left behind. Imagine if your
newly bought windows 10 PC would get security updates for only 2 years

------
zxv
For those wishing to experiment with the developer tools, here are
instructions for installing the android runtime for chrome (ART):

[https://developer.chrome.com/apps/getstarted_arc](https://developer.chrome.com/apps/getstarted_arc)

This developer tool does not use the play store. One needs to download the
app's APK file in order to install using the ART as described above.

------
mtgx
I want to recommend Chromebooks to people or buy them for family members, but
the 4 years of support is _way too short_. I think it should 6 or 7. If Google
is serious about competing against Windows on the desktop, then it needs to do
that. I don't care what their excuses are for not pushing it longer than 4
years. It needs to happen. Period.

I also hope that Google re-focuses its efforts on pushing more ARM-based
Chromebooks into the market. The latest chips are significantly more powerful
than Intel's Atom based chips, and the most high-end ones are very close or
equal to Core M, for 1/10 of the price (I wish I was exaggerating).

Microsoft failed in helping ARM compete against Intel, because Windows still
depends too much on x86. Chrome OS doesn't. It's architecture agnostic, and
it's time to act like it. Yet, like 95% of the Chromebooks on the market are
Intel-based, more than even Windows-based PCs (where there is a higher
percentage of AMD-based machines). That's unacceptable to me, and I will
boycott Chromebooks until that changes as well.

~~~
mkozlows
If you want an ARM laptop, buy one. The reason most people don't is that that
they're slow -- the most popular Chromebooks aren't running Atom or Core M,
they're running faster processors.

~~~
mtgx
> If you want an ARM laptop, buy one.

You mean _the_ one? Because there are only like 1 or 2 in the market. And
their chips are like from 2013. That's why they are "slower". I want
Snapdragon 820, or Exynos 8890, or a Cortex-A72-based one like Huawei Kirin
955 or Mediatek's Helio x30. And I want them this year, not in 2018. I don't
want a dual core Cortex A15, or a quad-core Cortex A9, like what you get on
the market right now.

If you look at Amazon like 8 out of 10 top Chromebooks have Atom Bay Trail
"Celeron" chips. I don't know where you got the idea that there are "more
popular ones" with Core i3 or higher. Were you thinking of Chromebook Pixel?
That may be _known_ by many but it's certainly not popular in sales.

~~~
scholia
There have been a few attempts to sell ARM-based laptops, including Smartbooks
(1) and the Microsoft Surface. They've all flopped horribly. This doesn't mean
they can never be successful, but it does make PC manufacturers less likely to
take the risk again.

Of course, users can always buy an ARM tablet and add a cheap keyboard/case
combo.

They needn't necessarily be slow -- see the Apple iPad Pro, for example.
However, most buyers are probably looking for something that costs less than a
Windows 10 laptop, and you can now get Windows laptops or 2-in-1s for $199 or
less. These also have almost-instant on and can run sandboxed smartphone-style
apps, albeit only a few hundred thousand of them.

In sum, it could be tough to launch an ARM-format laptop (much more expensive
than launching yet another Windows 10 laptop), and the margins would most
likely be thin or negative.

(1)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartbook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartbook)

~~~
mtgx
I'm aware of the shortcomings of the ARM-based Windows notebooks. But they
mostly failed because there are no great "universal" apps.

Chromebooks have no such issue, because for one they are "browser-based" so
ISA-agnostic, and two, Android apps are also ISA-agnostic for the most part.
In fact the majority of native apps were optimized for ARM, not x86, last I
checked, so if anything it's Intel's hardware that could cause some issues
with some apps on Play Store-enabled Chromebooks.

As for performance, Apple's A9X can beat Core M on many workloads. A9X is
probably no more than $35. That Core M was $280 (that's what the OEMs pay when
they bundle them in their devices, possibly with some light negotiation).

[http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-
hea...](http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-head-to-head-
against-intels-core-m-in-arm-x86-grudge-match)

~~~
scholia
_> I'm aware of the shortcomings of the ARM-based Windows notebooks. But they
mostly failed because there are no great "universal" apps._

Smartbooks were not Windows notebooks. They still failed. Why the Surface RT
failed is another matter, but the major reasons included (a) price and (b) the
inability to run traditional Windows 32 software.

 _> That Core M was $280 (that's what the OEMs pay when they bundle them in
their devices, possibly with some light negotiation)._

Hard to know what OEMs pay for Intel chips, and unless you work for one, you
probably don't. (Even if you do work for one, you probably don't.) However,
it's not going to be $280 on a $599 selling price.

In fact, Intel listed the Core M with a "Recommended Customer Price" of $281.
Selling them by the thousand to OEMs, I'd guess it might get half that, though
I'd be interested in _hard_ evidence to the contrary.

Looking on amazon.com, most Core M laptops seem to be heavily discounted,
possibly because they don't seem to offer particularly good performance for
the money. The Lenovo Core M Yoga that hit the UK market first (at the end of
2014) roughly halved in price within months....

------
rocky1138
Aren't most of the apps on the Chrome OS and Google Play Store just adware
ridden nastiness? I never seem to get what I want from there without having to
hand over all my personal data.

~~~
bitmapbrother
One could also say the same about Windows - an ecosystem filled with nothing
but virus and malware infected apps.

~~~
WayneBro
I don't think you can say that about Windows.

Can you point to some "virus and malware infected apps" that Windows users
commonly install?

~~~
reitanqild
> Can you point to some "virus and malware infected apps" that Windows users
> commonly install?

Try googling for driver or registry fix or keygen.

Enjoy.

