Google explains why Android apps still aren’t on Chromebooks - spurrierpoetastords

Every time I open my Chromebook and see that an update is available, I get a twinge of exhilaration. Is this the moment that my Acer Chromebook will finally get Android apps? So furthest, the answer has forever been no, and information technology doesn't look like that will interchange anytime soon.

Samsung's revolutionary Chromebook Pro starts shipping along Sunday, but Android apps will remain in important at least through and through the summer, American Samoa reported last week past The Verge.

Google didn't have so much to say astir the province of Android on Chromium-plate Osmium during last calendar week's annual Google I/O conference. But the company did run a dedicated I/O session aimed at teaching developers how to target their apps for Chromebooks and bigger screen devices, arsenic first spotted past Thurrott.com.

The big takeout food from that session is that Google is grappling with the same issues we've been hearing just about for months. At the first step of the session, Google even showed some of its own apps, including Google Maps and Hangouts, that aren't one of these days tuned for large covert devices.

Basically, the big issues that Android apps require to deal with during the migration to Chromebooks are support for wider screens; including a landscape painting mode in addition to portrayal; allowing for adjusting an app's window sizing; and tweaking input signal approaches to suit a laptop with a keyboard and mouse.

The issues aren't just affecting Chromebooks either. Google said these optimizations can improve the experience on Mechanical man-supported laptops, as well atomic number 3 newer Android phones that have a screen background mode like Samsung's Galaxy S8.

googlemapschromeos — Google Maps running along a Chromebook.

Even if an app is lacking some of these tweaks, they can still work pretty well. The wider-screen out issue, for example, just makes some apps look odd. The image above is of Google Maps' research feature. All the contented is in the heart of a screen, spell the menu is stretched impermissible crossways the entire display.

Similarly, not having a landscape mode just means that an app feels cramped on a laptop, but it's nonetheless usable.

The bigger issue, nonetheless, is windowpane resizing. Some senior apps become unstable when you try to resize them on a laptop, because they were ne'er meant to do anything but exhibit on a phone or tablet.

To confront the window-resizing issue, Google's baked several tools in its newest Chrome OS windowpane manager. The system scans apps to see which "era" of Android they were built for. If the app is not denseness-cognisant, for illustration, the app will always display in a maximized window.

Pre-Android N apps, meanwhile, volition flip-flop between a fullscreen view and a firm window size of it. For Android N and later, most apps are freely resizable, thanks to the windowing features shapely into Android 7.1. That said, some apps Crataegus oxycantha not exercise the resizable feature, in which case they would occupy the screen.

The impact on you at home Unfortunately, this shut up doesn't reply the enquiry of when complete those older Chromebooks slated for Android support will puzzle information technology. Presently there are just six Chrome Oculus sinister devices that support Mechanical man apps in the stable channel. Two are in beta, and much 80 are "planned" to experience Android apps in the future, according to Google's Chromium internet site. Hopefully, this will all live sorted tabu by the separate, but at this point there's really no point in predicting when the swell Android app revolution will happen happening Chromium-plate OS.