Play Store on Chromebooks
Honestly, this was one of two natural progressions. The other simply being replace Chrome OS with Android. I had always assumed that was the easier of the two, which is why I expected that. But this is tantamount to the same thing. From an end user perspective at least. The Android apps are truly all the average Android user cares about.
People are making a big stink about how this will affect Windows. And I think the response is overblown. In my mind this changes nothing. Yes, I think it has the possibility to hurt Microsoft. But, more in the long run. And that means a chance to respond or adapt.
What has changed in the short term is nothing. Unless you're a consumer Chromebook user. For the rest of the world, it is business as usual. Android, thanks almost in whole to the Play Store was always a super set of Chrome OS. There was nothing one could do in Chrome OS that they couldn't do in Android, but there was plenty that Android could do which Chrome OS couldn't. In other words, people who wanted an Android laptop simply bought an Android tablet and a 3rd party cover with a BT keyboard or they bought the Pixel C.
In other words, there has been an Android related answer to Windows for a VERY long time.
And let's not pretend Chromebooks were capable for consumers. I know someone, who by all accounts should be the target market, and she hit issues with it time and again. It was buggy, even with core apps, couldn't do random things they were used to doing either coming from an iPad or Windows device and generally oozed cheap crap. And that had nothing to do with physical device quality.
Reading this article I'm stunned. One section complains that PCs are complex, slow, insecure, out of date, and not affordable if you don't want crap. ALL of these things apply to Android. And thus, all are likely to apply to Chromebooks going forward.
Firstly, Chrome OS was complicated to begin with. Android apps are also often inconsistent adding to that. Android and Chrome OS can be secure if you get updates regularly. But then, the same can be said of Windows. Android devices are also expensive if you don't want crap. And, if anything the gulf is wider. Worse, once Android games go to Chrome OS, you can expect hardware demands to rise widening that gulf of how much you need to spend to get something decent.
All of that is really meaningless though. Why is Chromebook a long term threat? The proof is in the pudding. Chromebooks never caught on because, while they could serve the productivity requirements, without Android apps they didn't give users the leisure value they expect. So, even all of that exposure in school likely didn't translate into meaningful sales. Now that the machines they use at school can also run the games and social apps and everything else they're interested in, over time you'll see people changing their personal machines.
Even longer term, that will lead to BYOD policies being forced to adopt Chrome OS which will drive further enterprise adoption. Further enterprise adoption and may even drive consumer demand back down from there as well.
This is also why Microsoft needs to get back into education. I still think Microsoft needs to pull their heads out of their ass and simply give Windows away for free or as close as possible to negate any licensing fees they have elsewhere and then push their way back into education. Youth drives the future of personal computing.
I'll still be keeping a Windows 10 machine or two. But then, I'm a developer. I'm a rarity in the grand scheme of things.
People are making a big stink about how this will affect Windows. And I think the response is overblown. In my mind this changes nothing. Yes, I think it has the possibility to hurt Microsoft. But, more in the long run. And that means a chance to respond or adapt.
What has changed in the short term is nothing. Unless you're a consumer Chromebook user. For the rest of the world, it is business as usual. Android, thanks almost in whole to the Play Store was always a super set of Chrome OS. There was nothing one could do in Chrome OS that they couldn't do in Android, but there was plenty that Android could do which Chrome OS couldn't. In other words, people who wanted an Android laptop simply bought an Android tablet and a 3rd party cover with a BT keyboard or they bought the Pixel C.
In other words, there has been an Android related answer to Windows for a VERY long time.
And let's not pretend Chromebooks were capable for consumers. I know someone, who by all accounts should be the target market, and she hit issues with it time and again. It was buggy, even with core apps, couldn't do random things they were used to doing either coming from an iPad or Windows device and generally oozed cheap crap. And that had nothing to do with physical device quality.
Reading this article I'm stunned. One section complains that PCs are complex, slow, insecure, out of date, and not affordable if you don't want crap. ALL of these things apply to Android. And thus, all are likely to apply to Chromebooks going forward.
Firstly, Chrome OS was complicated to begin with. Android apps are also often inconsistent adding to that. Android and Chrome OS can be secure if you get updates regularly. But then, the same can be said of Windows. Android devices are also expensive if you don't want crap. And, if anything the gulf is wider. Worse, once Android games go to Chrome OS, you can expect hardware demands to rise widening that gulf of how much you need to spend to get something decent.
All of that is really meaningless though. Why is Chromebook a long term threat? The proof is in the pudding. Chromebooks never caught on because, while they could serve the productivity requirements, without Android apps they didn't give users the leisure value they expect. So, even all of that exposure in school likely didn't translate into meaningful sales. Now that the machines they use at school can also run the games and social apps and everything else they're interested in, over time you'll see people changing their personal machines.
Even longer term, that will lead to BYOD policies being forced to adopt Chrome OS which will drive further enterprise adoption. Further enterprise adoption and may even drive consumer demand back down from there as well.
This is also why Microsoft needs to get back into education. I still think Microsoft needs to pull their heads out of their ass and simply give Windows away for free or as close as possible to negate any licensing fees they have elsewhere and then push their way back into education. Youth drives the future of personal computing.
I'll still be keeping a Windows 10 machine or two. But then, I'm a developer. I'm a rarity in the grand scheme of things.
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