While it wasn’t announced during today’s Google I/O keynote, it looks like the Play Store is still coming to Chrome OS. This news was first spotted by 9to5Google who spotted the following in a session description.
“Today we announced that we’re adding the best mobile app experiences in the world, Android apps and the Google Play store, to the best browser in the world, Chrome! Come to this session and test your Android apps for Chrome OS. You will get hands on help from our friendly engineers on how to optimize your Android app for Chromebooks.”
Though apps will likely need to be tweaked in order to properly run on Chrome OS, the integration may prove a huge advantage for Chromebooks going forward, as this development answers the complaint so often associated with Chromebooks: that native apps are easier to use than their web counterparts, and that some apps offer functionality that websites do not.
While this is definitely exciting news for Google, it’s not exactly breaking. The news that the integration was coming leaked out earlier this month.
Android apps won’t be available on all Chromebooks to start, as the conference led many to believe. In fact, just three Chromebooks will receive the update in June including The Asus Chromebook R11, the Chromebook Flip and the 2015 Chromebook Pixel.
However, Google’s assured customers that the list of Chromebooks that will work with Android later this year is more extensive and includes a wide variety of brands.
You can find the complete list of Chromebooks that will eventually receive the update here.
Related reading: Google’s Instant Apps lets you use apps without installing them
[source]Google[/source][via]9to5Google[/via]
