Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Play Store and Android Apps Coming to Chromebooks

chrome.googleblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–208 of 208 posts

Re: Play Store and Android Apps Coming to Chromebooks

#201

Post by jshevek »

headmelted wrote: post #168
jshevek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but for the absence of solid developer tools, I'd have stayed forever." Are you saying that Arch or Ubuntu and everything that runs on them aren't enough for you? Or that crouton hadn't evolved far enough at the time? These days you can run crouton in a window or a tab within ChromeOS. Launch an xterm or IntelliJ or whatever each into their own windows, displaying within ChromeOS. I'd say that the 2015 Pixel (plus c…

I must say Intellij was what I was thinking of primarily. Have you got a link? Previously when I looked at this, Crouton required me to root the Chromebook and effectively switch to Linux rather than run it under Chrome O/S. If that's changed (which from your post it sounds like it has), then I need to have another look at this!

Crouton still requires you to root the chromebook, so you get the annoying white screen on every boot (unless you are willing to go farther and flash the firmware).

As far as switching to linux rather than run under Chrome OS, I guess that depends on what you mean. Include "xiwi" as one of your components when installing crouton, and you can launch android studio and have it run within the chroot, but display as a window on your chromeOS desktop. Its not visually attractive but functionally i'd say its very well integrated. It 'feels' likes its running directly on chromeos.

Sorry I can't recommend any particular link aside from https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton, but I think its worth a bit of googling to find discussions relevant to any questions you may still have.

Re: Play Store and Android Apps Coming to Chromebooks

#202

Post by jshevek »

jhasse wrote: post #89
jshevek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but for the absence of solid developer tools, I'd have stayed forever." Are you saying that Arch or Ubuntu and everything that runs on them aren't enough for you? Or that crouton hadn't evolved far enough at the time? These days you can run crouton in a window or a tab within ChromeOS. Launch an xterm or IntelliJ or whatever each into their own windows, displaying within ChromeOS. I'd say that the 2015 Pixel (plus c…

What about the missing Windows key?

Yeah... That was one of my concerns also before hand, I forgot about that.

I didn't think I'd be happy on a chromebook because I made regular use of those missing keys, like the windows key, page up, page down, f11, f12. I thought I needed those keys to prevent too much chording.

But I saw the keyboard switch as an opportunity to remap things so that I stay closer to home row more of the time. Its nice. The old (windows style) key layout was also nice, but adapting was easier than I thought, thanks to the flexibility of most linux apps.

Re: Play Store and Android Apps Coming to Chromebooks

#203

Post by rpdillon »

jalami wrote: post #139
spot wrote: post #107

from the post: > Schools in the US are now buying more Chromebooks than all other devices combined -- and in Q1 of this year, Chromebooks topped Macs in overall shipments to become the #2 most popular PC operating system in the US*. that's pretty amazing actually. congrats to google & the chromebook team!

Congrats on the adoption, although I still don't think it's moving our public institutions in the right direction. It's really just moving a lot more kids into a walled garden. I know Google has been in hot water for collecting student data recently and has since taken steps to fix it. That's their primary business model though. " Anonymizing " promises always follow and then it's a trust game again. I can see a futu…

I'm limited to only my experience in the U.S. public school system (and two universities, one private, one public) but education itself seems to be a walled garden. Curricula are set by policy, not by the instructor. Textbooks are pre-determined, and largely non-negotiable. Many classes mandate all sorts of closed software, sometimes begrudgingly allowing Octave in place of Matlab, for example. Many CS courses mandate a particular language, proprietary or not. And it's nothing new; when I was growing up, it was Apple ][ machines in every classroom. Even in my master's program, the layout templates for the thesis were provided assuming I was using Word. I had to parse them and mirror them into LaTeX so I could use the tools of my choice.

I understand and agree with your concerns, but choice has never been a staple of the education system I've encountered. Perhaps it is different elsewhere.

Re: Play Store and Android Apps Coming to Chromebooks

#204

Post by rpdillon »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #69
caffinatedmonk wrote: post #43

I'm curious why they didn't mention something so game changing as this in the keynote.

What game is this changing, really?

It's a pretty huge deal, at least in my eyes. Chromebooks have this enormous following because of the price. Now, every app in the Play Store is installable to this huge group of laptop users. That means when a company wants their app to be on Android, they consent to it being on laptops as well. This means Microsoft Office and Apple Music are on ChromeOS laptops. It's a very effective strategy to vastly increase the viability of Chromebooks for regular users using other companies' apps. I never expected to see Apple developing apps for a Google-controlled laptop OS, but here we are.

Re: Play Store and Android Apps Coming to Chromebooks

#205

Post by dzamo_norton »

imtringued wrote: post #177
stephenr wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what's inherently so bad about "being a google user". Having every facet of your digital life mined for personal data, for the sake of a mega-corp's bottom line? > If the only hypothetical disadvantage you're thinking about it is "Google might shut down one day" Not at all. Its actually more likely "Google might stop supporting X, Y or Z that you depend on".. They, you know, have a history of doing tha…

The only problem with "data mining" is the government, not corporations. The corporations use that data to only do one single thing: give you personalised ads. However the government could pass new laws and prosecute you for things you have done 20 years ago on the internet.

You draw a clean divide but be wary of things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

Re: Play Store and Android Apps Coming to Chromebooks

#206

Post by Qerub »

jimmcslim wrote: post #108
Qerub wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, with Neverware CloudReady: http://www.neverware.com/

Interesting, can that be virtualised I wonder?

They provide "unofficial" OVF files for VMware and VirtualBox: https://neverware.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/214564457-Un...

Re: Play Store and Android Apps Coming to Chromebooks

#207

Post by [deleted] »

mitoyarzun wrote: post #65
eugeneionesco wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere says there is not support for the original Pixel. It just does not get it at this point just like other chromebooks. >Google Play will start rolling out in the developer channel with M53 on the ASUS Chromebook Flip, the Acer Chromebook R 11 and the latest Chromebook Pixel. Over time, this will roll out to other Chromebooks in the market too

I doesn't appear on this list: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/6401474

[deleted]

Re: Play Store and Android Apps Coming to Chromebooks

#208

Post by dragonwriter »

nl wrote: post #111
Robelius wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this was a big rumor for a few days that ended up getting extinguished by a Google exec.

Yeah. But then they build devices like the Pixel C, which were clearly supposed to be Chrombooks[1] and they have both groups reporting to the same managers. So.. read the actions. [1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/the-pixel-cs-bumpy-ro...

The Pixel C is a tablet with an optional keyboard available, so if it was (as it clearly seems) planned to be a ChromeOS device, it was a third form factor from the existing Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.

But making a decision not to expand ChromeOS devices to include "Chromeslates" is not the same thing as killing Chromebooks.

Post reply on HN