Chrome OS is a curious story. In its first five years it evolved rather little, which made many doubt their future. But then came the Android applications and everything changed. Then new rumors appeared that pointed to his death because it was going to merge with Android, and in this CES 2017 has survived with new products.
It seems that even though it has tried to kill Chrome OS, the operating system of Google is still alive and kicking. Moreover, at a CES 2017 in which manufacturers are turning to PCs and laptops, the operating system has entered a second youth championed by two new Samsung devices prepared for Android applications.
Therefore, it seems that the system based on Google’s browser is still left hanging for a while. That is why we are going to analyze how his evolution is and what we can expect from him in the near future. We will also analyze what happens then with the theoretician Andromeda OS which was said to join Android with Chrome OS.
Its early youth was looking for good prices
Chrome OS was born with the concept of being an operating system in the cloud. Its premise was that 95% of the time a user used a laptop computer was only for surfing the internet. That’s why they saw it as a good idea to create an operating system that was just for that. They did not want to replace Windows in the desktop, but rather to look for a complementary device to take us on a trip or the little moments of leisure.
Serving only to navigate the net, the first Chromebooks could afford to come up with fairly fair specifications , which served to assault the lower ranges and be an affordable option for less affluent pockets.
The negative part of this approach was that what we were sold was not very powerful equipment, and that the operating system, after its first years of evolution, was really incomplete and almost unusable in times when we had no connection. In addition, the installable applications were just the same that we can install on any other computer with Chrome.
But in spite of all these inconveniences, the price factor was attractive enough that the Chromebooks could get settled in the American classrooms leaving behind Apple and Microsoft, which in the beginning of 2016 ended up materializing that the Chromebooks managed to surpass in sales To the Mac for the first time in its history in the United States.
Google had experimented with high-end devices, but its impact was not too relevant. Therefore, we can almost say that this unexpected conquest of the market was achieved almost exclusively by having cheap devices and focused on navigation, and all despite its poor ecosystem of applications.
His thesis, therefore, ended up working. Finally, the Google operating system stopped talking about it as a failure, and even Linus Torvalds himself, given that Chrome OS uses its kernel, congratulated his way on Google saying that his Chromebooks had managed to banish the eternal joke of the year of Linux.
The base was already set, the first youth of Chrome OS had been almost a proof of concept, and had concluded successful. Now it was all ready for the second phase of the operating system, a second youth that began with the announcement that Google Play officially arrived at Chrome OS bringing with it the native compatibility of Android applications.
The second focuses on Android apps
Once the Android applications arrived, Google only needed to improve its mid-range devices . It was well that manufacturers were focusing almost exclusively on ultra-low-end devices, there was their target audience, but for Chrome OS to expand among other types of users needed more capable computers.
The first to show their letters was Samsung. The Chromebook Pro they introduced in October had twice as much RAM as most Chromebooks, about 4 gigabytes, a more powerful processor, and even a stylus to boost the use of their touchscreen, all while maintaining a fairly affordable price of $500.
Following his steps, in late December Asus introduced the C302CA model of its Asus Flip, with a similar price, the same amount of RAM and an Intel Core m3 processor. And this morning, Samsung has countered again with a new Chromebook Pro and Plus, the first of which improved the processor to match the Asus. Before them, Acer had already wagered in September for a Chromebook R13with similar characteristics.
So, just over half a year after Google announced the new Chrome OS stage, it seems manufacturers are welcoming it with a mid-range array of devices that the operating system has long needed. A range with which the system will try to compete from you to you with the average range of Windows.
And is that, although Microsoft does not show signs of weakness when it comes to dominating the desktop, you have to keep in mind that there is a transition in which users increasingly use their mobile to perform several of the tasks they used to do only with Laptops and PCs, so Google’s weapon of having Android applications can be a major asset.
Now only the most important thing is that these devices start to reach stores and that Google and manufacturers like Samsung, Asus or Acer know how to explain to their consumers what this operating system offers. It will be interesting to see how sales are evolving as the year comes in and new devices are coming in.
Where is andromeda OS now?
But it was not going to merge with Android? This is the question that some of us who closely follow the rumorology around Andromeda OS we have done this week about the project. And the answer seems to be the same as so many other times that there has been talk of the possible union of both systems: NO, Google does not seem to intend to merge them.
Last month, Google’s SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer referred on YouTube to the fusion rumoers of both systems clarifying that this would not happen. “It does not make sense to unite them, both are successful,” he said. “We just want to make sure that both sides benefit each other. That’s why we brought the Google Play Android apps to Chrome OS and the Chrome OS update system to Nougat.”
Lockheimer also said that this kind of joint evolution but separately we would continue to see it in the future with new projects, confirming that both operating systems would continue their own way steadily influencing. A convergence between platforms without having to have a single convergent operating system.
Where then is Andromeda OS? Keep in mind that Andromeda is just a codename, and that Google has not given official information about the project, so it could still be anything. In fact, by power might even be about this mutual influence between operating systems that we are already witnessing.
Andromeda may also be the way to call the new Chrome OS, and that at no time we see a new operating system, but the evolution of the existing. Hopefully, with the demands of following the pace of Android to support its applications Chrome OS accelerate the accelerator and begin to evolve much faster than it has done in recent years.
There are two more possibilities. It may be on the other hand a third operating system that is preparing for a new range of devices, or even as has also been speculated, the way to call an upcoming Android 8.0 with an interface specifically prepared for tablets and laptops in the purest style Of Remix OS.
And of course, there is also the possibility that it is nothing, that it was only a test with which they decided not to follow. All possibilities remain open until Google finally speaks. But what has ensured the company of the search engine is that Chrome OS goes ahead, so we will have to forget once again to bury it.
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