{"id":127444,"date":"2025-09-08T09:23:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T09:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/127444\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T09:23:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T09:23:32","slug":"chromeos-needs-more-love-and-attention-than-a-mobile-makeover-with-android","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/127444\/","title":{"rendered":"ChromeOS Needs More Love and Attention Than a Mobile Makeover With Android"},"content":{"rendered":"

After diving into the luxurious Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14<\/a>, I have ChromeOS on my mind. Apparently, so does Google. In an interview with TechRadar<\/a>, Android \u201cdaddy\u201d Sameer Samat dropped a small bombshell about the future of ChromeOS, though without providing any of the raw details. He said Google plans to combine ChromeOS and Android \u201cinto a single platform.\u201d This project seems to be in the early phase of development. Samat said he was analyzing what apps people are using on their PCs or Macs, which he would want to emulate in a revised Android laptop experience.<\/p>\n

Google is known for killing products, but is this a form of death for ChromeOS or a transformation? It will depend on if Google actually focuses on making a platform built for the regular laptop user or if it merely paints ChromeOS over with the bold yet all-too-tacky Material 3 Expressive<\/a> aesthetic. At its recent I\/O dev conference<\/a>, Google said the upcoming Android 16 is supposed to support tablet-sized displays better than before. That\u2019s a good thing, since software on Android tablets has been languishing for years.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s plans to combine all its disparate ecosystems into one put it in stark contrast with Apple. Though most of the attention has lingered on the Liquid Glass redesign<\/a>, the iPad maker recently revealed its plans for iPadOS 26, a redesign that will finally enable multiple app windows on a screen at once<\/a>. While the OS update will make the iPad more Mac-like, the developer beta shows how the experience is tailored for tablets. If Google actually plans to make a real change to ChromeOS, it needs to think big. It needs to create an experience tailored to the lower-powered, lower-cost laptop design. And no, that update can\u2019t just be more AI shoved into every nook and cranny.<\/p>\n

\"LenovoGoogle put NotebookLM right on the Chromebook\u2019s app shelf. \u00a9 Kyle Barr \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

Chromebooks receive regular yearly feature updates<\/a> that feel more like ChromeOS is being saddled with hand-me-downs<\/a> from Google\u2019s other flagship products. There are certain features, like Google Tasks integration on the app shelf and the GIF recorder made for sending a quick meme to friends, that are all fine and dandy. But little about the experience feels truly bespoke. Outside a bevy of streaming apps and a few games on the Play Store that play nice with laptop resolutions, users are expected to jump into the Chrome browser for all their important tasks. Want to write? Use Google Docs. Want to edit photos? Jump into the constrained cloud-based version of Photoshop.<\/p>\n

This lack of a larger ChromeOS developer community makes the Chromebook feel too much like a one-trick pony. You can do a lot with it, though only so far as you\u2019re willing to sign up for half a dozen cloud services for running code, editing photos or videos, or playing games. These are meant to be cheap devices that anybody can get into, but more so they\u2019re a vehicle for Google to push its various subscription services. The big one today is Google One, a $20-a-month service that grants you 2TB of cloud storage\u2014which I will admit is enticing by itself\u2014but the main reason it exists is it allows access to Google\u2019s most advanced Gemini AI models. Google currently tries to entice users with the promise of six months of Google One for no extra cost when you buy a new Chromebook. Of course, you\u2019ll have to cancel the subscription yourself once the bill becomes due.<\/p>\n

Over the last few years, Gemini has come to roost on the company\u2019s cheapo laptop line, and now it\u2019s perched on the former Caps Lock key as the \u201cQuick Access\u201d button. There are a few features like \u201cHelp me read\u201d to summarize text or \u201cHelp me write\u201d to jot down an email when you can\u2019t be bothered to format a few bare sentences. There are some other AI features Google likes to promote, like Google Lens image searches of your photos in the Gallery app. For the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, Google added its AI recording and note-taking app NotebookLM right to the app shelf as well.<\/p>\n

None of this provides what I would consider a fleshed-out experience. Instead, Google needs to focus on making Android apps truly compatible with Chromebook. While I can get Disney+ or GeForce Now native apps right from the ChromeOS desktop screen, there are far too many apps restricted to operating in tablet mode. Chromebooks are still a distinct form of laptop\u2014one whose main selling point is affordability\u2014but they could be more. It demands a bespoke experience that\u2019s more than just a gateway to Google services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After diving into the luxurious Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, I have ChromeOS on my mind. Apparently, so does…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1777,1337,64,63,45658,113,1342,203,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-127444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-android-16","9":"tag-apple","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-chromebooks","13":"tag-google","14":"tag-ipad","15":"tag-mobile","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}