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Google to Fold Chrome Operating System into Android

• rdl 11y ago
  This is the worst day in commercially available operating system security in my lifetime. There have been bad operating systems in the past (pre come-to-Jesus Microsoft, like 98 and XP...), but rarely has anyone taken a great security product (ChromeOS) and merged it with the worst currently-shipping security product (Android). This is a horrible day for security.
  • kzahel 11y ago
    It depends. Maybe we just see the Play store added to chromebooks, and chromebooks are rebranded as android devices. I mean, there's already so many different android runtimes/versions, what's one more?
  • guelo 11y ago
    With Marshmallow Android is moving towards a runtime-permission-prompt model similar to Chrome. They've also done a lot of work on sandboxing using SELinux. Also, after stagefright they started doing monthly security patches and have gotten buy-in from the OEMs to push those patches. Android's biggest security challenge has been getting the manufacturers and carriers to update their software but there has been a lot of work towards changing that, from moving big parts of the OS to userland so they can be updated independently of the core system, to applying business pressure. Presumably updates will be easier on Chromebooks than on phones.
    • pjmlp 11y ago
      Still waiting for Samsung fixes....
      • 72deluxe 11y ago
        We may be waiting forever... time to ditch it for a loss
        • pjmlp 11y ago
          Yeah, the problem is what to get instead if staying on Android. I surely won't pay what Google is asking for their devices, given lack of SD card and changeable battery. Plus, they also proved they aren't trustworthy by not providing a path for those that gave them money for the Nexus with TI processor. As if Google didn't had the money to keep supporting them.
          • 72deluxe 11y ago
            It's like they don't care, which is sad. They have got into a great position to be a contender in the fickle horse-race that is the mobile phone industry, but the same horse is trampling the people that funded them to get there. "What about security updates for my phone?" The hurdle is jumped, and the patron has the Google horse land on them, causing death
          • s73v3r 11y ago
            If TI decides to leave the market, there's nothing to be done. You can't force TI to come back if they don't want to.
            • pjmlp 11y ago
              You can maintain the code yourself for the existing devices, that is a lame excuse. Goggle has the knowledge and money to do so.
              • s73v3r 11y ago
                How can you do that if TI didn't give you the rights to it in the first place?
          • nradov 11y ago
            Unfortunately the latest Samsung devices don't have SD cards or changeable batteries either. They have apparently voluntarily eliminated two of their key differentiating features, not sure why.
    • ilurk 11y ago
      > runtime-permission-prompt model So each app will continue to ask for access to everything and you choose between being info-excluded or giving away your data. > buy-in from the OEMs to push those patches How does this work? Is there any legal obligation for manufacturers/vendors to provide these patches in X weeks? If there isn't then I won't keep my hopes up. > from moving big parts of the OS to userland so they can be updated separately from the core system How exactly? By moving from Android to google proprietary apps? If so then this is a two-edged sword as it inevitably binds you to google spyware. Either you own an half-phone or you give away your data. Sorry if I sound bitter but I see what Android could be and get defeated by what it is. I never owned an iPhone but my next phone will be one. Maybe I'll still be disappointed, but at least won't have to deal with CM, Xprivacy, manual updates and all the other shenanigans. Disclaimer: I'm an increasingly disappointed Android user.
      • AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
        > So each app will continue to ask for access to everything and you choose between being info-excluded or giving away your data. I think you might misunderstand what the Marshmallow upgrade will allow. Users will have the ability to turn off any given permission for any given app. Don't want google maps to have GPS access? Cool, just turn it off and the app will have to deal with the lack of information. It's not a Windows model carte blanche per-run thing. Sure, apps can be abusive and ask for more permissions than they need and refuse to run if they don't have them, but that's a problem with any conceivable permission system.
        • malka 11y ago
          > Sure, apps can be abusive and ask for more permissions than they need and refuse to run if they don't have them, but that's a problem with any conceivable permission system. The OS could give fake data to the apps. Such as a arbitrary GPS location, or an empty contact list.
          • oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
            Hopefully, that would be unnecessary. If my calculator app won't run without full access to my address book, I'll seek out an alternative calculator which will; at this extreme, with an open marketplace, there will surely be alternatives.
    • chetanahuja 11y ago
      "With Marshmallow Android is moving towards a runtime-permission-prompt model similar to Chrome" This is horrible from a usability perspective. Note that large bulk laptop purchasers (schools, large enterprises with mostly web application requirements etc.) have been the biggest markets for chromebook. One of the biggest reasons for that popularity is the lower cost of management of chromebooks compared to windows or mac laptops. In that the base OS not only just works, it also just updates. A huge saving in admin time and headache. The other factor is that all user data is automatically in the cloud, which means backups/restores/replacements/upgrades are trivial operations now. One way chromebooks can retain this ease of use/administration is by basically shipping a laptop with chrome running on Android OS but no other apps installable by the user (outside of chrome sandbox). This will get Google out of the two OS kernels management business but could still retain the essential goodness of the chromebook concept.
      • lnanek2 11y ago
        > Android OS but no other apps installable by the user There are quite a few device management solutions out there for Android that can white list, black list, deny all installs of apps. It's very common to setup in business and already completely supported. It's even far more powerful than that with capabilities to do things like deny certain apps/networks unless you have certain password complexity requirements, etc..
  • TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > There have been bad operating systems in the past (pre come-to-Jesus Microsoft, like 98 and XP...) Desktop OSes are generally pretty bad. Unsandboxed Windows and OS X apps can do an awful lot with your computer.
    • rdl 11y ago
      Yeah, but they've been getting better over time. It's monotonically non-decreasing security, at least, and the desktop->mobile transition has been amazing from a security perspective. This is a step backward. The only question is how big is that step.
      • deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    • pjmlp 11y ago
      Traditional UNIX is no different. Without containers every p0wned process has full access to $HOME and can do everything the user is capable of. I really like that Apple and Microsoft are pushing for sandbox models in their OSes.
      • lazaroclapp 11y ago
        In all fairness, you don't run any modern UNIX server without giving each sensitive server its own user, which effectively sandboxes it (not quite the same as chroot/containers/VMs, but still). Of course, desktop UNIX/Linux tends to have many important processes running as the same user, but that falls under "Desktop OSes are generally pretty bad".
        • rdl 11y ago
          Everyone sane runs sensitive systems "system high" now, where there's a machine dedicated per task. User/process/thread security in UNIX/POSIX/etc. is bullshit weak sauce, sadly. You can use VMs for some of that, but that's the limit on sharing (and that's if you trust your hypervisor to be a separation kernel thing; reasonable for many people. Not for others.) Docker/containers isn't enough. Users aren't enough. Processes aren't enough.
  • smt88 11y ago
    Flash and Java are still shipping...
  • ctz 11y ago
    Android will have good security just once they've added more stapled-on legs. Security doesn't come from engineering and good design, it comes from adding more things!
    • fiatjaf 11y ago
      Thank you for saying this! I am an Android developer and I wanted someone to come here and say good things about Android so I could feel safer for my job!
  • Mikeb85 11y ago
    There's nothing insecure about Android. It just gives a few more ways to install apps (side loading for example) which clever social engineers/scammers use to their advantage. It's like saying your credit card is insecure because you gave it to the homeless guy on the street when he promised to only buy a sandwich...
    • pedrocr 11y ago
      Android security is typically horrible when you consider that most phones ship with software that never gets updated throughout their life and has been put together in a quite haphazard way. It's not a fault of Android per-se but it's the case in pretty much anything that isn't a Nexus.
      • Mikeb85 11y ago
        > It's not a fault of Android per-se And that's pretty much the answer... BTW, I've found Samsung to be decent with updates as well.
        • derefr 11y ago
          > And that's pretty much the answer... Not really. Android got big because OEMs can do as they like with it. And what OEMs like doing, apparently, is not updating the OS on their device. An Android OS that, from the start, controlled OEMs in some way (by e.g. forcing them to ship updates on a certain schedule) would likely not have become a viable contender in the market. It's not the fault of Android that OEMs are stupid, but Android was created specifically to cater to OEMs and their stupidity. Android's existence is itself the problem. (It'd be great if their licensing model up until now was just a bootstrapping strategy, though, and they began requiring things of their OEMs.)
          • Mikeb85 11y ago
            It would be nice if they forced OEMs to use stock Android and update regularly, but they're already under government investigation for requiring Android branded phones to use certain Google services like Play... To a certain degree, they're forced to either be open as they are now, or sell devices. Given absurd government rulings, forcing stock Android on OEMs would probably bring an antitrust suit against them.
  • cwyers 11y ago
    Most of ChromeOS's safety "features" come at the expense of not being able to do anything; ChromeOS can't run arbitrary malicious code because it can't really run ANY arbitrary code. Yes, yes, Emscripten, the birth and death of Javascript, etc. -- the fact is that security through uselessness isn't a recipe for adoption.
    • ZenPsycho 11y ago
      why do you consider running in a sandbox "useless" ? that's pretty extreme. you really can't think of any use at all for code running in a context where its ability to take power away from the user, and do things without the users permission is greatly reduced? Is your primary goal and idea of utility about doing those sorts of things? ..Or maybe you simply have a deficient imagination?
    • mehrdada 11y ago
      JavaScript is not the only way to do things; cf. Native Client[1]. [1]: https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/overview https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/overview
      • iofj 11y ago
        Things that all software on the planet is compatible with if you would just redesign and recompile and ... * chromebooks * web browsers * a turing machine implemented by having a grad student a car drive around on a long street * https://xkcd.com/505/ https://xkcd.com/505/ Of course it might be a bit slower, it might take a bit more effort, time and imagination on the part of the user. But seriously: it needs to run existing programs without recompilation.
        • mehrdada 11y ago
          That's beside the point made in the OP, which attributed Chrome's great security to its lack of functionality, which is just false. You argument is a valid one with respect to its lack of popularity. That said, while compatibility helps adoption, it is not absolutely necessary. If it were, we would all be stuck with Windows computers in our pockets running on Atom processors having 1:30 hours battery life.
  • bitmapbrother 11y ago
    What an ignorant comment. To call Android the "worst currently-shipping security product" is representative of your knowledge on the matter.
    • rdl 11y ago
      Within the space of general purpose desktop/mobile operating system products: Windows 10 (pretty good). OS X (not great -- which is a shame). Most Linux distributions (OK to good as shipped, can be great). Most BSD distributions (good to great). iOS (fucking AMAZING). ChromeOS (great, RIP). Windows Phone (honestly don't know much about it). BB OS 10/QNX (great, but irrelevant sadly). And then there's Android.
      • bitmapbrother 11y ago
        This is pretty funny considering Windows is the cause for nearly all of the security exploits that occur. The horror stories of people being infected with viruses, malware and ransomware all have one thing in common - Windows. You only need to look at the thousands of security patches this OS has had applied to it over the years and the new ones applied every month to truly grasp what a sieve it really is. BTW, where are all of the horror stories concerning the Stagefright exploit that so many "pundits/idiots" predicted would be a disaster for Android? I'm still waiting for that. Also, was there a reason you started referring to specific versions of OS's like Windows 10 and BB OS 10 and then disrespectfully mentioned Android without a version number? Don't you think that was a bit disingenuous, and lame, of you to start mentioning specific OS versions and leave out Android? If you're going to use version numbers then shouldn't you have applied them to all of the OS's you mentioned instead of cherry picking OS versions and then shitting out the line "And then there's Android" at the end?
        • rdl 11y ago
          OK -- Android (until absolute latest) = lovecraftian horror. Android marshmallow = exceptionally bad. BB10 is a fundamentally different OS (QNX based) than pre-BB10. but Pre-10 was also a good OS from a security perspective, just utter shit to develop meaningful third party apps for. Windows...used to be horrible. Big changes around Vista (although, ~unusable). Since Windows 7, it's been "reasonable" in a highly managed corporate environment, and not bad even out of the box. 8, 8.1, and 10 have been improvements on that. It's actually easier to do a 10k user highly locked down Windows deployment (although expensive, and involving a lot of experts and third-party tools) than to do a 10k user locked down Mac OS X deployment. Apple had a lot of advantages by starting from UNIX and from basically starting after security was a "thing", but hasn't done as good a job on OS X security as I'd like. iOS, on the other hand, is amazing -- the only serious deficiencies I find with iOS are a lack of "enterprise as sole root of trust" (which no one does, with the possible exception of (Blackberry Pre-10 and post-10), or roll-your-own open source linux/bsd with a lot of trusted computing grafted on in ways which are not at all trivial to do), and a lack of emphasis on anti-forensics on the device itself -- if you unlock it, it contains an sqllite db with ~every message, which shouldn't be how they do it. OTOH, on cloud services, Google is far and away superior to Apple. The biggest problem with Apple is you're largely pushed toward iCloud which is not amazing from a security perspective. The true win of ChromeOS was you were equally pushed to the Google ecosystem, which is amazing for cloud service security -- the sole problem being you're 100% exposed to Google, Inc. which is both a US company and a single third-party entity, but if you had to pick a single company to be responsible for your cloud services security, you'd probably pick Google on the merits.
  • irascible 11y ago
    You're a moron.
    • dang 11y ago
      > You're a moron. Personal attacks are not allowed and comments like this will get your account banned on HN. Please post civilly or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
  • rtpg 11y ago
    How do you qualify Android as the worst security-shipping product? Is it mainly due to the lack of sound update mechanisms? Because conceptually, Android's model (each application is its own Unix user) seems pretty good
  • DominikR 11y ago
    I don't know what's so horrible about an OS that by default encrypts all data on the device, allows applications only to run in a sandbox and uses SELinux.
  • devanti 11y ago
    Security aside, I would argue that 98 and XP were the best versions of Windows during that period
    • ygra 11y ago
      98 was so bug-riddled that only 98 SE was actually usable. And I'd argue that Windows 2000 was much better-liked than XP on that period. XP was horrible at launch and needed two service packs to become actually liked.
  • melling 11y ago
    Nah, you just don't see the big picture. You're coming at it from the tech side. It's better to look at the business side. Microsoft has 89% desktop market share, so they basically own the desktop. Apple will never be a real threat because of price. Chrome/Android has an excellent chance to be a real alternative on the desktop. if it gets a large enough market share, perhaps we'll see Adobe's apps, for instance, along with all other major apps.
    • bphogan 11y ago
      Is Apple really that much more expensive? Or is that just something that people believe because it used to be true? I keep hearing this repeated, but I bought my dad a $499 Mac Mini. With Microsoft producing a laptop of their own that starts at $1499, I think all we can really say is "Apple doesn't produce bargain laptops".
      • acdha 11y ago
        It was true to varying extents before Apple switched to Intel processors. Since then it's never been true by more than ± few percent for equivalent hardware. The complicating factor, and why it's such an enduring belief, is that Apple doesn't ship adware and has minimal hardware standards which are higher than the lowest-end PC market. You see this over and over again where someone is either unable to back up claims or, when pressed, has to admit that the $400 notebook they said was “just like” the MacBook Air had a previous generation processor, magnetic hard drive instead of SSD, low-contrast/dim display, mushy keyboard or unusable trackpad, etc. The same manufacturer probably even makes something fairly competitive, too, but it costs about as much.
        • scholia 11y ago
          Doesn't really matter. Apple makes a very narrow range of products for high-end consumers, and that's a small portion of the market. Apple has nothing for the average home user who wants a $199-$399 laptop. Or even for the geek or gamer who wants a reasonably-priced tower.
  • gopowerranger 11y ago
    ChromeOS is based on Linux so, please, let us hear just how bad you are saying Linux is.
  • jordanthoms 11y ago
    What about if it's Android that gets killed, not Chrome OS? Then it'd be a great day :)
    • zacharypinter 11y ago
      That's where I thought they were heading when ChromeOS got support for running Android apks.
    • jessaustin 11y ago
      That's an intriguing possibility. Given their relative marketshares, even if the plan were to kill Android in favor of ChromeOS, they'd probably say exactly what they're saying now.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • frik 11y ago
    I hoped Google would merge Android into ChromeOS, a much more lightweight OS. Now they are stuck with the broken Java UI architecture (too much sits in the main thread, too many object oriented classes). Low latency UI isn't possible by the initial pre-Google (Android company) bad design choices. Even my high end Android phones is just as fast and responsive as the iPhone 6s but has 4 times as much CPU and a lot higher CPU raw speed and 4 times as much RAM. Beside that Android is the good guy, it's the Win95 20 years later - an universal OS that can be used for many things without restrictions. The Android 5+ UI theme is really outstanding great, I personally favour it over iOS 7+ and Win8+. Maybe Android will get HTML5 web apps as first party citizens. And don't forget about the lovely Go language.
    • dragonwriter 11y ago
      > I hoped Google would merge Android into ChromeOS, a much more lightweight OS. Now they are stuck with the broken Java UI architecture If, as stated in the article, they merge ChromeOS into Android, rather than abandoning ChromeOS in favor of Android (which seems to be how you and many others have interpreted it), they aren't limited to what is currently in Android, since they bring all the capabilities of ChromeOS are now in Android. A merger is functionally equivalent regardless of direction, which just becomes about branding (and its hardly surprising that Android is the more marketable brand.)
      • frik 11y ago
        Ok, thanks for pointing that out, we will see.
  • eggnet 11y ago
    That's a pretty bold statement to make. The announcement contains zero detail, to the point that I'm left questioning what the purpose of leaking the information was other than page views.
• onedev 11y ago
  Really, we're doing "Alphabet’s Google" now?
  • maxerickson 11y ago
    A business publication would want to include Alphabet as clickbait.
  • wittekm 11y ago
    Seriously, that's ridiculous. Alphabet's Nest, for instance, would make sense - it's not a household name.
    • eropple 11y ago
      Consider that the target audience of the WSJ is much more "investor" than "technologist". You really think investors wouldn't want mention of a company that might be in their portfolio? 'Cause that company isn't "Google", it's "Alphabet".
      • jinst8gmi 11y ago
        If you've invested in Alphabet without knowing that it's the company formerly known as Google you probably aren't someone who reads many articles about them.
        • eropple 11y ago
          If you thought Alphabet is the company formerly known as Google, you would be wrong. Alphabet is a conglomerate created to hold Google and was created first as a subsidiary of Google, to which a separate dummy subsidiary was created with which Google merged to convert Google stock into Alphabet stock. Alphabet is not Google. Alphabet never was Google. Alphabet owns Google, and the performance of Google is tracked under Alphabet's own stock (which still uses GOOG, but is a concretely different stock). There is a difference, and these are people to whom it matters.
• msoad 11y ago
  Interesting development! Apple is taking "two separate platforms" approach while Microsoft and Google want to blend desktop and mobile. If you think about it makes sense. Microsoft and Google are going after a world were you pay for a cheap ARM device and it does work as desktop and mobile for you but Apple is going after customers who can pay for multiple devices. But one thing is for sure, ARM is coming to desktop computing!
  • onion2k 11y ago
    The only real difference with mobile versus desktop computing is the human interface. There are immense cost savings to be had in merging the operating systems for Apple devices if you can manage the code well enough; I'd be surprised if they don't eventually at least try to combine iOS and OSX.
    • nemo44x 11y ago
      I agree. I love Apple's products but to be honest it is a bit frustrating sometimes when OSX doesn't interface with iOS.
    • TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
      Many components are shared between the two. They seem to have a single mobile OS with different variants (iOS, watchOS, tvOS). Some day OS X will be one of those variants.
    • zmmmmm 11y ago
      > The only real difference with mobile versus desktop computing is the human interface Not limited battery life? The fact that the device "moves"? I think there are a few more differences than UI ...
      • derefr 11y ago
        Laptops are within the "desktop computers" side of the mobile/desktop split, and they have basically all the restrictions and features of phones/tablets. Desktop APIs are effectively a strict superset of mobile APIs.
• johansch 11y ago
  Ah, so Android won the fight.
  • ChuckMcM 11y ago
    Android has much better brand appeal than ChromeOS
  • oblio 11y ago
    At this point, Android is about to win the fight of "client" operating system, overall. It definitely looks like the underdog in the Innovator's Dilemma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma).
  • dragonwriter 11y ago
    If there was a fight, and Android won, ChromeOS would just be abandoned. ChromeOS being folded into Andorid means that ChromeOS's time as a separate project to try things without disturbing the already phenomenally successful Android (and without being constrained by it) has run its course, and its time to apply ChromeOS lessons to Google's flagship client OS.
  • pjmlp 11y ago
    Of course, why use a browser pretending to be an OS, when one can have a full OS that has lots of browsers to choose from?!
    • dsmithatx 11y ago
      LMFTFY - An OS (mostly) pretending to be a browser.
      • pjmlp 11y ago
        I said that on purpose and maintain my statement. That was nothing more than the Chrome team playing at building OSes.
• blinkingled 11y ago
  Took'em a while but better late than never I suppose. I have long been saying (on various forums :)) that this is the right approach. Flash is dying off and if Android gets better desktop window manager and shell (the bar is already set too low - ChromeOS sucked with its stupid everything including WiFi settings in Chrome, tiny fonts and web-only apps) people will finally have a credible alternative to Windows desktops/laptops. Plus this gives Google a chance to do something like Continuum - without having to be beholden to x86 for apps like MS.
  • edutechnion 11y ago
    July 2009: Ballmer told the crowd, "I don't know if they can't make up their mind or what the problem is over there, but the last time I checked, you don't need two client operating systems. It's good to have one." May 2010: Om Malik "Android Has Won — Time for Chrome OS to Move Along?"
  • bad_user 11y ago
    Chrome OS having just a browser UI with web-only apps is what made it appealing. I actually admired Google for releasing two competing operating systems and to me this is sad news, even though I've been an Android fan. You make it sound like Google is the one that needs a "credible alternative" to Windows, when in fact it is Microsoft that needs a credible alternative to Chrome OS and Android. Speaking of which I don't believe in Continuum. It's an idea that's natural coming from a company that has a desktop OS and wants to leverage that in order to maybe win some market share on mobile. I first heard of the idea from Canonical with their Ubuntu phone, another company trying to leverage a desktop OS. It's a cool idea for geeks, but made obsolete by cloud-enabled apps like Google Docs. Why would one need Continuum when the changes you make in Google Docs on your phone are reflected immediately on every device or PCs you have?
    • blinkingled 11y ago
      > You make it sound like Google is the one that needs a "credible alternative" to Windows With the new Windows licensing Windows is the better alternative to ChromeOS - you can do more at the same price and you can lock it down if you need to a la ChromeOS. In some ways Google is stepping up the game - with Android you can do more. Good point about Google Docs use case however that's very limited - If I carry the shared storage of my phone with me, if I can blow up the phone to use two monitors and still have my missed calls, SMSs etc in front of me - it enables a greater use case. There is definitely merit in that if continuum is done right.
• ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Seems like the expected development, when I first saw Ubuntu's presentation slides for Ubuntu in all things it really struck me that this was the way things would go. At the Microsoft Windows 10 event their ability to make it morph on multiple form factors seemed like they had done a lot of work to have the whole "phone tablet desktp" thing work everywhere. The challenges of maintaining multiple stacks has got to be huge. So this is a good move for Google, ideally they cut down the infighting between the two groups, get rid of the lower 5% of both groups leaving them with a combined, more effective group with a well defined mission. It will be interesting to see if they can make enough money at it though.
• ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Seems like the expected development, when I first saw Ubuntu's presentation slides for Ubuntu in all things it really struck me that this was the way things would go. At the Microsoft Windows 10 event their ability to make it morph on multiple form factors seemed like they had done a lot of work to have the whole "phone tablet desktp" thing work everywhere. The challenges of maintaining multiple stacks has got to be huge. So this is a good move for Google, ideally they cut down the infighting between the two groups, get rid of the lower 5% of both groups leaving them with a combined, more effective group with a well defined mission. It will be interesting to see if they can make enough money at it though.
• fiatjaf 11y ago
  Android has so many problems it is even difficult to start talking.
  • Oletros 11y ago
    Please, start
    • billybilly1920 11y ago
      They are still being sued by Oracle over the base the OS is built on.
      • blazespin 11y ago
        Lol, i love how this is at the bottom of the HN comments page. Sometimes HN can be kinda clueless.
        • bdcravens 11y ago
          Not sure what the status of that lawsuit has to do with anything. It's not like Google is going to admit defeat and stop moving forward based on a lawsuit that isn't even resolved (which was dismissed once, only to be revived via appeal). Worst case scenario is that Google will pay a damage and start paying Oracle licensing fees for Android, the same way they pay Microsoft.
          • Oletros 11y ago
            Google doesn't pay Microsoft
            • bdcravens 11y ago
              You're correct - I believe it's the handset manufacturers that do
    • fiatjaf 11y ago
• fiatjaf 11y ago
  If this happens then the web as a platform will lose. No more Javascript everywhere, forget about all the browser improvements of the last years: we're going Java!
  • amyjess 11y ago
    I'm fine with that. The web was supposed to be a, well, web of interlinked documents. Using the web as an applications platform has always been an ugly, ugly kludge. Let's separate our document-browsing system from our applications platform again.
    • fiatjaf 11y ago
      You're fine with being to write the same app in various languages? You're fine in having a natural tendency to a monopoly in the OS landscape (because of costs)?
      • bdcravens 11y ago
        Either you're writing apps you hybrid technologies (like Cordova or electron or the like) or you're already doing that (objc, java, C# to target android/ios/osx/windows) IF this change made all Chrome extensions go away (which it won't), it would have a pretty minimal impact on the current development landscape.
  • rhodysurf 11y ago
    Yeah cuz Android doesnt have a web browser..
  • blumkvist 11y ago
    if you watch D conference with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs they both say that the browser will take a (giant) step back in favor of rich clients. It only makes sense, stuffing everything into the browser is a terrible proposition on its own for various reasons, but the development tools are very bad too, so no real gain.
    • 11y ago
• amyjess 11y ago
  Finally. For years, Google insisted that there was an important difference because Android was for touchscreens and ChromeOS was for keyboards and pointing devices. But that went out the window when they released the Pixel. Suddenly, both Android and ChromeOS had to support touch, and there was no contest between them. You see, ChromeOS is just a web browser running as the graphical shell. Android has a web browser, and it also has its own application platform. We end up with a comparison between "web browser + touch" and "web browser + touch + non-web applications", making Android objectively superior (when, before ChromeOS supported touch, you could argue that ChromeOS could have a better UI because it didn't need to support the peculiarities of a touch interface). It makes no sense for Google to sell both a full-featured OS and a crippled OS.
• billybilly1920 11y ago
  I can only see 1 paragraph; why do people keep posting sites with broken content? Would be nice if people could link to actual content.
  • bsimpson 11y ago
    It's a WSJ original report, and the WSJ uses a paywall for everybody but Google News readers. You can either find the same article in Google News; use a bookmarklet like Wait, Google Sent Me; or read The Verge's rehash of the WSJ article.
    • bduerst 11y ago
      They also don't paywall organic search traffic. Search the headline in google, then click the wsj link. If you're using chrome just highlight headline, right click, search, and then click wsj link.
  • TranquilMarmot 11y ago
    The Wall Street Journal will only let you read articles if you subscribe- if you google the article's headline and get at the site through google, though, you can read the whole article: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Alphabet%E2%80%99s+Google+to+Fold+Chrome+Operating+System+Into+Android http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Alphabet%E2%80%99s+Google+to+Fold+Chrom...
    • PhasmaFelis 11y ago
      The above link minus pointless snark: https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+to+Fold+Chrome+Operating+System+into+Android https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+to+Fold+Chrome+Operat...
      • amyjess 11y ago
        That still gives me the paywall. WSJ removed the Google exception a while ago.
• Zigurd 11y ago
  I wonder if the name "Pixel C" for the new tablet presaged this. But Pixel C is a pricey device. Chromebooks can be made very inexpensively. And Android would be suckey in an inexpensive laptop non-touch form-factor. I assume they have thought of this. This will also be an interesting trajectory for getting tablet devices into business settings. It's not the response I expected to iPad Pro. I'd really like an Android-based direct competitor, which Pixel C isn't. Close, but not really. If they do it right, it could be what Windows could have been: One browser runtime, one managed language runtime, one implementation language (or a family of them that compile to the same bytecode), across all form factors. But that "across all form factors" has eluded a solution so far. I don't blame Apple for not trying to get there first.
  • bsimpson 11y ago
    If you search the Chromium commit logs, you can see they are still actively working on features for the Ryu (Pixel C). Part of this story hasn't been told yet. They announced it with Android, yet there is still hardware management work going on for the same device in ChromeOS. Now, WSJ is gossiping that ChromeOS and Android are merging, which would make continuing to do Ryu-specific work in ChromeOS even weirder.
    • akhilcacharya 11y ago
      I hadn't heard of the continuing work before - it would make sense, however, for them to develop a tablet for ChromeOS and then switch later on in the design cycle. I doubt they'll release a convergent OS anytime soon, that'll probably be a part of Android 7.0, which'll probably be announced next June.
      • bsimpson 11y ago
        Except they announced it with Android. That's what's weird. The commit logs make me think it will run Android OR ChromeOS, user's choice. Maybe eventually the dual boot mode gets deprecated in favor of the converged OS. But if they are planning to converge, building and releasing two software stacks for the same device feels weird. The more I write this, the more I wonder if they are somehow trying to get both running on one device to make sure that the converged experience is at least as good as both of the separate iterations its replacing. Still, that's an inordinate amount of work when they already have both ChromeOS and Android devices they could reference.
• fiatjaf 11y ago
  http://www.ubuntu.com/phone http://www.ubuntu.com/phone
• mtw 11y ago
  Chrome OS would have had more chances if they gave it more capabilities. Being limited to essentially chrome extensions as apps suck! Users want to install easily Atom, postgres or redis or even simple tools like GIMP without fighting against the machine
  • tennysonmach 11y ago
    "Users", the vast majority of users, buy chromebooks because they're billed as inexpensive, secure, zero maintenance windows alternatives. Not developers.
    • 0xFFC 11y ago
      Developers has huge impact on peoples option. Every family/community has nerd which everyone talks to him before buying anything most of the time. If you want to dominate market share , it is only enough to dominate nerd people.
      • jenscow 11y ago
        I couldn't disagree more. I'm a developer, and personally have no interest in a Chromebook but there's no way I'd recommend the types of machines I use to my mother. I'd use my knowledge of computers to recommend something that's actually suited for her use case - ie, Faceborg, email, downloading malware, etc. I would also be swayed towards the computer that's easiest to maintain (meaning less call-outs).
        • 0xFFC 11y ago
          I think you misunderstood what was my point, my point wasn't that developer suggests chromebook (I don't personally),My point was if chromebook would have ordinary stuff (like you said) it was much superior influence on developers (almost all of developers I know, would jump into linux base desktop if google can provide perfect DE), because of google's open source background. the influence neither microsoft or apple don't have.But sadly the are missing such huge interest on market , just because of their ego, it took 7 years to understand Google need a desktop operating system.if they do not provide operating system, someone like microsoft and its smart ceo Nadalla would come and steal whole their web based user base in long term.And effectively can kill google. p.s. look at how small was canonical. whole canonical investment on ubuntu is something google can throw away.just for securing its user base.
• AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
  Mixed feelings on this. As someone with two Chromebooks (one Pixel, one Samsung ARM Chromebook) , an Android phone, and two Android tablets, here's what I see as the potential benefits and tradeoffs: + Being able to run Android apps on a Chromebook would be awesome. There's already some limited support for this, but it would be nice for it to be official. + Taking over the Chromebook line would hopefully force Google to make document editing not suck on Android devices. + Android running on Chromebooks will hopefully make the display scale better on hi-DPI devices. - ChromeOS is fairly lightweight and actually runs surprisingly well on cheap devices. I have no doubt that my Chromebook Pixel would run Android just fine, but the Samsung ARM Chromebook would probably chug, even though it's running ChromeOS well enough. - Making Android run on laptops will hopefully make Google step up their Android document editing game, but as of right now it still sucks. Even the cheap Samsung chromebook was leagues ahead of using my tablet and a bluetooth keyboard in terms of trying to compose documents. - The ability to install crouton on Chromebooks and have another Linux chroot on the side is an awesome feature of the Chromebook. I imagine that might be more difficult under Android, even though it still uses the linux kernel.
  • bduerst 11y ago
    It would be easier to convert to linux since Android is already a VM on top of it, right? I'm hoping that since they're now targeting the desktop OS market that they'll make it easier to run native linux programs on Android. My biggest complaint of using ChromeOS on a pixel 2 is that there are no good text editors on the level of Sublime Text (which works on linux).
    • AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
      Have you tried Caret? I use it on my Pixel 1 and it seems to be modeled off Sublime/Ace.
      • bduerst 11y ago
        Yeah, it doesn't do regex find and replace, and crumbles under large files.
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• serge2k 11y ago
  Really don't want Android on a PC.
  • bitmapbrother 11y ago
    And I really don't want Windows on a PC.
    • optionalparens 11y ago
      I guess you don't like PC gaming or using a host of Windows only powerful apps. Come on, I run OSX and various flavors of Windows, Android, Linux, and BSD at home. Use the right tools for the right job. Windows isn't so bad and is pretty stable these days. I actually have more problems with OSX doing stupid stuff after updates or Linux murdering my hardware/desktop every few months vs. windows. My primary dev env is Linux and OSX, but I still use windows for gaming, personal use, etc. It's not hip anymore to just rip things because they are MS, closed-source, whatever. Grow up. Every OS does many things better than the competition. Acknowledge that most of the major OS's are pretty good and use the ones that do what you need instead of ripping on them.
      • ionised 11y ago
        I love PC gaming and I really dislike Windows. I begrudgingly upgraded to Windows 10 because it will be the only OS with DirectX 12 support. However the absurd level of phoning home the OS does made me also build a new machine running Debian, which I now use for all my work and general personal computing. My Windows machine is gaming/Steam focused only now. No cloud integration, no Microsoft Account. If 99% of games worked on Linux, or SteamOS makes good progress as a viable replacement for Windows on a desktop I'll drop Windows in a heart beat. I have zero attachment to it and the OS offers nothing I can't get elsewhere. Except perhaps for Netflix, the Windows Store is a wasteland of terrible apps that for the most part are worse than their Win32 counterparts.
        • optionalparens 11y ago
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• PaulHoule 11y ago
  Looks like what Win 8 would have been if Microsoft had already had a tablet operating system.
  • pjmlp 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC
• jallmann 11y ago
  Will be interesting to see just what form the combined OS takes, particularly which elements from ChromeOS carry over. It's notable that iOS and Android still don't have native support for composing declarative UIs, notwithstanding marvelous hacks like React Native. Web technologies aren't perfect, but the use of markup for UI with well-integrated APIs is something that WebOS, FirefoxOS, etc got right a long time ago. It doesn't even have to be HTML... look at QML. I'm hoping that Android will take on some of those characteristics, and not subsume ChromeOS without a trace.
• comex 11y ago
  So what does this mean for security? Since its inception, Chrome OS has made security a focus and put a large amount of work into it, everything from bootloaders to Linux kernel features such as seccomp-BPF and KASLR, to complement the existing high security of Chrome itself. It also borrows Chrome's silent and fast update mechanism, allowing for frequent security updates. Its sandbox may feel somewhat limiting, but for those who do manage to stay within it, Chrome OS is probably the most secure desktop platform in common use. Meanwhile, even if Android's update issues were somehow solved, it has a pretty bad security reputation even apart from that, with a long list of historical vulnerabilities which could be basically said to stem from a lack of priority given to it (e.g. from designs which, while not inherently insecure, unnecessarily open up attack surface that could be eliminated with a better design, such as in the case of the "master key" vulnerabilities; or just from crappy code, such as binder - whether caused by lack of auditing or just lack of security awareness among its authors I don't know, but both can be considered part of making security a priority). Maybe things have gotten better, and I don't have that much experience with Android, but there is simply no comparison between the general Android app sandbox (which allows native code) and what you get under Chrome with NaCl and such. The latter isn't perfect (as I know, because I've exploited it repeatedly), but the attack surface to examine for bugs is just much smaller than on other systems. I'm not really giving it any justice with this brief description. I guess that if you're especially worried about security you could just only use Chrome on Android, and not install or use any other apps, and that would get you most of the way there. Indeed, if you do so, you can still have access to the Chrome Web Store's paltry selection of apps - it's cross-platform, you don't have to go for the OS designed around it... But essentially nobody will do that. And even if they did, the recent Stagefright vulnerabilities demonstrate the difficulty of accounting for every potential attack surface on an OS, and thus the benefit of having the OS engineers design the lockdown rather than the user coming up with something ad-hoc. (Plus, today at least, even under Chrome's sandbox, Android's version of the Linux kernel is not as secure as Chrome OS's. And again, this is all assuming Android slow update problem is solved, which is a pretty big assumption considering how long it's been around; if it isn't, that's already enough to basically doom platform security.) So if Chrome OS is really folded into Android, the end result, I think, will be the destruction in practice of something that was really quite unique in the security world. Maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic - after all, those same security engineers could now work on Android. But I am, because even if work is done on it, the platform just comes from such a different place that it would be hard to make the same.
• iMark 11y ago
  Oh, thank goodness. Both operating systems have their merits, but require Google to split their focus. And yes, this is in contrast to iOS/Mac Os/watchOS/tvOS, which is a common OS divided by UI
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• arthurfm 11y ago
  Since Chrome OS currently includes Flash Player but Android doesn't, could this mean that Flash Player will be removed from Chrome on all platforms in 2017?
  • romanovcode 11y ago
    I can only hope Flash Player will be removed from every platform in existence in 2017.
• pjmlp 11y ago
  Finally! I never saw the purpose of a browser pretending to be an OS. Had they tried something like a Smalltalk image like OS, using for example Dart instead of Smalltalk, that would be quite interesting. Now a browser?!? All OSes already have a browser and are much more feature rich.
  • dragonwriter 11y ago
    > Finally! I never saw the purpose of a browser pretending to be an OS ChromeOS wasn't a browser pretending to be an OS, it was an OS with a browser as the GUI shell.
    • pjmlp 11y ago
      When we have a browser team trying to make it I into an OS, it is a browser pretending to be an OS, regardless how the technical stack looks like.
• zmmmmm 11y ago
  I really hope this actually means "full" Chrome (as in, plugins, chrome apps, all the rest) and "full" windowing capabilities are coming to Android and not just that Google is cancelling ChromeOS and using some renaming and tweaks to Chrome on Android as a fig leaf to pretend otherwise.
  • bsimpson 11y ago
    I imagine that the lack of a DevTools front-end and extensions on mobile are product decisions, not technical ones. There's probably a compiler flag you could flip to compile an APK with support for both. Mobile devices have historically been small and underpowered; Google may have decided that including extensions would expose too much surface area to slow the browser down and/or kill the battery on a mobile processor. Similarly, they must have decided that the DevTools UI was designed for computers and wouldn't make sense on a small touch screen. I'll be very surprised if they remove either feature from future Chromebooks.
• EvanPlaice 11y ago
  ChromeOS is nothing but Linux with persistence sandboxed by default. All of its apps are nothing but webapps wrapped in a desktop app launcher ala Google Web Toolkit. Merging with Android means nothing really, unless they plan to replace java-based Android apps with a runtime that natively supports webapps. Lets call this what it really is. Alphabet/Google is killing any project that doesn't directly contribute revenue via advertising or Google Play sales.
  • untog 11y ago
    Lets call this what it really is. Alphabet/Google is killing any project that doesn't directly contribute revenue via advertising or Google Play sales Not really. This is Google rationalising their client OS strategy to be one rather than two. I'm amazed it took them this long. unless they plan to replace java-based Android apps with a runtime that natively supports webapps Replace? No. But Android has been picking up a lot of features that allow webapps to behave like native ones. Home screen installation, notifications...
    • orionblastar 11y ago
      It means they can sell Chromebooks for under $300 that run Android/ChromeOS that can run Google Play apps in the Chromebook. I am assuming they are merging ChromeOS and Android to make it runs apps from both platforms to increase the number of apps it can run. This is sort of what Apple did when they bought out Next and merged NextOS with MacOS to make Mac OSX that ran Unix apps along with Mac apps. If only Microsoft would merge Windows with Linux to make Winux or something that runs Windows and Linux apps.
  • adventured 11y ago
    > Lets call this what it really is. Alphabet/Google is killing any project that doesn't directly contribute revenue via advertising or Google Play sales. That's obviously not true. See: Google Cloud Platform, Calico, and so on.
    • froo 11y ago
• alexkavon 11y ago
  Fucking finally.
• shmerl 11y ago
  I'd prefer them to fold Android into glibc Linux instead. This libc division with bionic is very annoying, especially when it comes to closed drivers. The last thing we need is Android expanding to desktop and causing even further rift.
  • nicklaf 11y ago
    My thoughts exactly. I can't stand Android (or smartphones in general). There is something fundamentally wrong with asking the user to install the JRE on a separate machine just to get a login shell on the phone. I was very sad the day my N900 died, which was a better Linux workstation (with a real keyboard) in a phone-sized device. But then the cheap Acer Chromebooks came out, and Coreboot makes installing vanilla Linux such a snap. The Acer Chromebooks are light enough that I can almost carry it around and use it like I would a smartphone. Being able to make calls through some kind of unlocked Chromebook / phone hybrid would be a step what my N900 offered, but on the other hand, I just despise Android so much from the point of view of a Linux user that I'm not sure it's be worth it. When I get around to it I'll probably just build a phone using FONA.
    • sunnyps 11y ago
      You don't need to install JRE to get a shell on an Android device. Just install adb[1], enable USB debugging on your phone and run adb shell. adb is a part of the Android SDK but you just need the adb binary which doesn't have any extra dependencies AFAIK. [1] https://developer.android.com/tools/help/adb.html https://developer.android.com/tools/help/adb.html
      • scintill76 11y ago
        Available on Ubuntu as android-tools-adb which installs fast, that's how you know it's not JRE. :P You can also install a terminal emulator app if access from PC is not a requirement for you.
  • vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Doubt it. Bionic has Android-specific features like system properties which the Android init initializes as the property workspace. I think they could be factored out into a utility library since it's just shared memory and doesn't depend on any libc-private functions, but I'm not sure. There are likely other Bionic modifications, too.
• kozukumi 11y ago
  I wonder how Microsoft will respond to this? Come July 2016 will Microsoft really stop the free upgrade from 7/8 to 10 or will they just make Windows free to consumers? Obviously there will still be a (small) charge to OEMs and for business users they will still charge for the Pro and Enterprise versions but I think it is time for Windows Home to become free.
  • rogerbinns 11y ago
    Also what about the folks who tried to install Windows 10, but their installer gives up with the "Something Happened" error? Will Microsoft take calls to fix their bugs, or are those unable to upgrade because of choices Microsoft made in their code out of luck?
    • voltagex_ 11y ago
      I ended up buying a whole new copy of Windows after my "upgraded" key was declared non-Genuine. Not a great experience, but I need Windows for my current work.
  • mattmanser 11y ago
    Windows will never be free to consumers, they still charge for new installs. A windows tax of 5%-10% on virtually all desktop/laptop computers is not small.
    • kozukumi 11y ago
      Yes probably to the OEMs, like I said, but I suspect in the future a current Windows consumer will be able to upgrade pretty much any version of Windows to the latest for free. People see the OS as free these days. They get updates to their iPad, iPhone, Mac and Android (kind of, depends on the OEM) without having to pay.
      • mattmanser 11y ago
        You can't upgrade if you've switched motherboards. New computer = new version of windows.
• mcintyre1994 11y ago
  It's going to be really interesting where they end up with tablets because right now Android on tablets is pretty rubbish. And that's not just an apps thing - it's the only one without split screen apps for example. There used to be a tablet UI with ICS, there's very little to distinguish them from a blown up phone at this point. It seems Apple have been very successful with iOS, but making smart enhancements like gestures and split screen that Google just never did. And of course Microsoft are doing very interesting things with Windows on tablets.
• dsmithatx 11y ago
  Only one question hearing this news. Will my Chromebook run Android or am I stuck with ChromeOS with no new updates?
  • deleted 11y ago
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  • crb 11y ago
    https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en
• cwyers 11y ago
  Google wants to be in the enterprise market. Microsoft dominates the enterprise market right now, and they're doing a lot of things (Surface, Windows 10, Office 365, Azure) to extend their dominance. If you look at new versions of Office and don't see anything new in there for you, it's because you're not looking at the collaborative space. Microsoft is pulling the rug out from under Google Docs (which for some reason Google rebranded as Google Drive because they're so terrible at naming things) by adding anything Google's services have over Office AND having backwards compatibility with current Office docs. Google can't match that. Apple meanwhile has the MacBook line, which was and may still be the laptop to beat in the ultrabook space. They also have the iPhone, which is the top dog for people who can afford them, and the iPad, which has dominated the tablet space in terms of productivity. (Android is dominating the tablet space for consumption, but that doesn't help nearly as much in terms of enterprise). The move to convertible devices is being driven by and catering to enterprise users. Microsoft is in the lead here with the Surface, and they're trying to extend this to their phones but they may not be able to overcome the handicap of nobody wants their phones. Apple is playing from behind here because there's walls between iOS and OS X that they won't cross, but they have inroads into the enterprise space, they have enough native iOS productivity apps that work well on tablets (Adobe and ironically Microsoft are both heavily into the iOS productivy app space, and that's a huge part of the market) that the iPad Pro is... unappealing to me personally but quite possibly will be successful in the marketplace. Google has... Chromebooks, which have no apps and no market penetration outside of the very, very captive education market (where IT administrators just want computers so locked down that teenagers can't do too much damage). And they have Android, which (in tablets at least) has almost no enterprise penetration and very little in terms of productivity apps. And the merging of ChromeOS with Android in order to tackle the enterprise market and the Surface line and the iPad Pro makes a lot of sense. But I'm not sure either papers over the other's flaws enough to make it viable, and I'm definitely not convinced that they're going to be able to be combined in a way that incorporates what ChromeOS does well that Android doesn't, like system software updates.
  • e40 11y ago
    Microsoft is pulling the rug out from under Google Docs However, Office 365 for the Mac (2016) regularly crashes. All 4 of us that use it at my company have experienced this. I can't remember the last time Google Docs crashed or screwed up a document. So, it amazes me that the quality of MS Office is so incredibly low. This is not the way to win any market.
• blazespin 11y ago
  This is a backup plan in case Google loses the fair use case against oracle / java.
• hardwaresofton 11y ago
  As a FirefoxOS user, I'm excited to hear this news, in the hopes that eventually people will realize that HTML+CSS+JS is not a terrible stand-in for a full-fledged OS (iOS/Android), depending on the task.
• pgrote 11y ago
  I've used a Chromebook as my machine for the last 18 months. I love it. Anything I need to do, I can do through web services, remote desktop or chrome remote desktop. The one thing I have come to love about ChromeOS is the security. I don't need to worry as much and I have confidence in using my Chromebook all the time. My phone is android and maybe I am just suffering from Verizon abuse, but I've never had the same security confidence with my phone. And I think this will be the issue. Most people only know Android through a phone experience and it's left a bad taste in their mouth. Anyway, the Google folks are smart. My hope is the security and reliability of ChromeOS is what is taken and folded into Android.
  • mark_l_watson 11y ago
    I agree re: good Chromebook security. (I also don't worry too much about security when using an iPad.) I specifically only use a conventional laptop when I need to use IntelliJ or otherwise do local development. I think that computer related crime will increase and using more secure devices, when possible, makes a lot of sense.
  • ChrisLTD 11y ago
    Kinda funny to say a Chromebook is your machine, when your setup relies on remote desktop access to a more capable computer.
  • on_and_off 11y ago
    The update cycle is also something that I would like to see on Android. The issue is a bit blown out of proportion since the support libs & play services are huge parts of the platform that are constantly up to date but it would still be nice to be able to count on the latest core APIs to be available on most devices in a couple of weeks. I don't have high hopes though, the obstacles against this seem pretty huge.
• arihant 11y ago
  Google hit the sweet spot between Android and Chrome when they announced the continuity like features which they actually never released. Still, without being able to beam Android apps to Chromebook, I love the integrations my Android Wear, phone and Chromebook have. They should just integrate it closer, which can be done without running the same OS. Heck, even Microsoft could do it. Just how do companies justify screwing over customers to simplify board meetings. About the last thing I want my trusty Chromebook to do is for it to be become Galaxy Booktab Duos III. Which, given that I have Samsung version, it will become.
• skoocda 11y ago
  The rumours about Android app support for ChromeOS were more promising. I'm able to get a lot of functionality out of my chromebook, exclusively due to the crouton extension. I've gotten through most of an electrical engineering degree on ChomeOS including developing android apps, writing and deploying javascript apps, and using ROS and PCL. I'm afraid this change will nix all of these, and I'll have to get a Mac to keep some UNIX functionality and maintain a rock-solid web-browsing experience. Not excited about that.
  • rocky1138 11y ago
    Why not Ubuntu?
• deleted 11y ago
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• javadi82 11y ago
  Paul Buchheit predicted this in 2010 to happen in 2011. Reference: http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/14/gmail-creator-paul-buchheit-chrome-os-will-perish-or-merge-with-android/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/14/gmail-creator-paul-buchheit...
• spinchange 11y ago
  Lots of public schools are using Chromebooks. Aspects of the Chrome OS model are key features and justifications for it. As a taxpayer and parent in a school district that buys a lot of Chromebooks, this is an irritating pivot and feels like strategy tax because Chrome OS was the more visionary and future-forward model. I have a feeling that a not-insignificant portion of America's pubic education system was betting on it. (edit: I know Sundar and Google are extraordinarily brilliant and know what they're doing...I am just envisioning Pixel C type devices, and this isn't the direction I think anyone thought Chromebooks were headed. I'll try to be more optimistic!)
• Periodic 11y ago
  The biggest difference between Android and Chrome OS for me as a user is how it handles user multi-tasking. I've tried using an Android tablet for work. It's nigh impossible, even with a keyboard because it doesn't support multi-tasking well. Sure, it supports OS multi-tasking, but it doesn't support user multi-tasking. Android is based around the single-task model. You have a foreground app that takes up the entire screen and other apps are backgrounded. You can switch between apps fairly quickly, but you can only have one open at a time. There are some attempts to fix this, such as Samsung's split-screen, but none are officially supported. We've even moved to having Chrome tabs use this model. I love my Chromebook for work though. It does everything I need to do, including having multiple document windows open for multi-tasking. Chrome OS is built on a multi-task model. You can have many windows open at once and quickly switch between them without losing state or visibility. Windows tried to merge the two with Windows 8 and it was a terrible user experience. The last thing I want for my dual 24" monitors is to be able to only use one window at a time. Having a messaging app take up the entire monitor is ridiculous. Hopefully they'll find a middle ground. Until user multi-tasking exists in Android I won't be using it for anything but my phone.
  • vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    I advise against the use of the term "multitasking" to mean anything other than OS/unit of schedulable work multitasking, which is the proper meaning. The same happened to "real-time", and generally having technical terms with concrete meanings be watered down isn't preferable. Multiple workspaces is really what Android lacks.
    • ScottBurson 11y ago
      I agree. This problem is growing exponentially.
      • pzone 11y ago
        I see what you did there.
    • threatofrain 11y ago
• adrianbg 11y ago
  Android and ChromeOS embody pragmatism and idealism. Android does everything everyone needs it to do but it's rotten on the inside because the focus is always on shipping. ChromeOS is a great vision for the future of detached computing but no one uses it because the vision hasn't been fully realized. I've been wondering whether this was going to happen ever since Chrome tabs on Android became equal citizens with the other apps. Seems like another good move from Google.
• jordanthoms 11y ago
  Seems everyone here is panicking because they think that this means Chrome OS will be killed and Android will be made to run on Chromebooks - but I actually think the signs point to the opposite - Chrome OS becoming the Phone/Tablet OS under a new guise. I wouldn't read too much into a leak filtered through journalists, and instead look at what Google's actually working on: - Google has Chromium developers working on a DART-based Mobile UI framework and execution engine, Flutter (http://flutter.io/ http://flutter.io/). It's looking to be far better than the existing Android UI system - built for touch and 120fps from the start. This uses the Dartium VM and a bridge to allow the DART apps to use all the native features of the platform, it's much more than just another web framework. Development on this is very active right now, clearly a sizable team working fulltime - and they're building new developer tools also. There was a talk on this a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnIWl33YMwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnIWl33YMwA . - Google has built a Runtime to allow existing Android Java-based apps to run on Chrome OS, and is currently testing this and working with developers to get their apps to run on it. It doesn't make much sense to invest in building that out just for chromebooks, since the experience on a Chromebook with Android apps is pretty awful (can't resize etc), but it makes total sense if it's going to be how legacy Java/Android apps run on the new Chrome based phone OS. The sad truth is that Android simply isn't a very well engineered system - it's been improved over time, but problems persist - like the complex update process leading to unsatisfied users and security problems, poor UI performance (even now, Android can barely do simple animations at a steady 60fps on the latest Nexus devices, and has little hope of allowing for the beautiful animations the Material Design team has come up with), and poor battery life. Google's also at a dead-end with Java given the ongoing legal battles, and with Apache Harmony dead they have to maintain the standard library implementation themselves. On the other hand, Chrome OS performs great, has awesome battery life on Chromebooks, is quite possibly the most secure end-user OS ever, and Chromebooks get speedy updates for at least 5 years. I know which one I'd choose as the basis for a merged OS.
  • glibgil 11y ago
    Interesting. Well, it's all getting folding into Android now.
  • jessaustin 11y ago
• toptalentscout 11y ago
  Seeing Android on PCs would be cool. It runs on top of Linux, it would pretty much do away with all current Desktop Linux variants I'm guessing. I could be missing something since I can't read the full story, it requires me to create an account or sign in. It might even give Windows a run for its money, heck I'd finally have a real reason to make and sell Android apps since I can actually read the fonts on my desktop "PC".
  • ionised 11y ago
    Android on a desktop wouldn't do away with all the distros that float around because they all attempt to address different problems and audiences. If anything it would be probably treated like Ubuntu, an easily accessible, user-friendly distro.
  • aws_ls 11y ago
    > I could be missing something since I can't read the full story, it requires me to create an account or sign in You can search for the title in Google search and click on the link from there, you will get to see the full story. Long live SEO!
• patrickaljord 11y ago
  Update 7:40PM: We've updated the article's headline to be more accurate. A Google spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge that both Chrome OS and Android will continue to exist; Chrome OS is not being "killed." http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/29/9639950/google-combining-android-chromeos-report http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/29/9639950/google-combining-...
  • bobajeff 11y ago
    So... they aren't going to focus more on Android-based laptops and rebrand Chromebooks to something without Chrome in the name? Because otherwise I'd just completely utterly ignore any and all Chromebooks since it'd be effectively obsolete and probably unsupported as soon as 2017 Rolls around.
• BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  People are really up in arms about this but keep in mind this is something that won't ship until 2017; the Android you know today won't simply have ChromeOS running as an "app"; it'll be deeply integrated and they'll likely address the multitasking issues they have today (2 years is a long time in technology terms). I'll save any criticisms I have for when I actually know what the ultimate combination looks like.
• ausjke 11y ago
  Android is really getting bloated these days, my nexus7 becomes nearly unusable these days(the launcher is not responding, etc), haven't used chromeOS. I recently bought a netbook(ACER) for $190 that I loaded with Linux and does everything I need, really why do I need ChromeOS? Both ChromeOS and Android are OSes, it's like two Linux distributions, I don't know why they should "merge", what's the benefit for doing that? is it merge-able considering Android is such a JVM-hack?
• JoshuaJB 11y ago
  This makes me sad. I used ChromeOS as my daily driver for over a year, and it worked beautifully. Always secure, always up to date. The available fast and elegant SSH and IRC clients combined with Google Drive alone covered most of my daily necessity. I only stopped using ChromeOS because Microsoft hired me and gave me a computer that cost 5x as much. Google did an admirable job in optimizing for low-end hardware, but there is a point where you can only eek so much out of a dual-core ARM with 2Gb of RAM. On the other hand, my android phone (which cost the same as the chromebook) regularly struggles to load the homescreen.
• hendry 11y ago
  The operating system I work on https://webconverger.com/ https://webconverger.com/ I feel is just as secure as Chrome OS. It self updates once installed (you can also downgrade if needed!) and we also have the entire rootfs in https://github.com/webconverger/webc https://github.com/webconverger/webc for easy review. We https://webconverger.org/wireshark/ https://webconverger.org/wireshark/ official Firefox releases to ensure it doesn't chat to third parties. https://webconverger.org/blog/2015/ChromeOS_versus_Webconverger/ https://webconverger.org/blog/2015/ChromeOS_versus_Webconver...
• realrocker 11y ago
  Merging Chrome OS with Android means that now it will have access to the humongous ecosystem of App Developers, Platform Engineers, OEM's, ODM's, cheap ARM chipsets, a gazillion of tiny hack shops across China, Taiwan and India and test labs. And more in the form of an established brand name. Android is bent and tested in unthinkable ways due to its reach. Let's see if Chrome OS is up to it.
• sandGorgon 11y ago
  finally. This is something which is obvious and had to happen someday. The challenge is to take core components in Android and Linux (systemd vs android init or kdbus vs binder) and merge them together. Interestingly, this summer there was a student project layering binder API on kdbus [1] I personally believe that SteamOS jumped the gun by not taking a bold step in this direction. It would have tapped into a even bigger developer community, accelerated the adoption of Vulkan and would have moved towards a larger Linux mindshare. It would have been an awesome world where most android apps could run on my desktop and my desktop has drivers that works with all graphics cards. [1] https://linuxplumbersconf.org/2015/ocw/proposals/3417 https://linuxplumbersconf.org/2015/ocw/proposals/3417
• meerita 11y ago
  I would love to fully switch from Mac to Android if Google releases a solid, fast, secure and full of software OS. Sketch, Adobe, Sublime for Android along with Material Design UI looks promising.
• meerita 11y ago
  I would love to fully switch from Mac to Android if Google releases a solid, fast, secure and full of software OS. Sketch, Adobe, Sublime for Android along with Material Design UI looks promising.
• ionised 11y ago
  What is Chrome OS like in terms of phoning home to Google? Is it Windows 10 bad? Diagnostics, usage telemetry, advertising, tracking etc.? I've never used ChromeOS and I'm more concerned about these things potentially making into stock Android (more than is already there now anyway).
• thebouv 11y ago
  Mostly concerned about schools who use them for students. A full blown Windows machine is going to be so much more of a maintenance nightmare for the school. Feature-light is a good thing, especially for elementary and middle school age students.
• eli 11y ago
  I really hope a robust community steps up to continue it as an open source project.