We received an exciting bit of news earlier in the week when Google decided to bring the Play Store to Chrome OS. However it looks like there’s a bit of bad news to go along with that. It looks like Android apps won’t be running on older Chromebooks and the list for those that make the cut may not make a lot of sense. It appears that Google will only make this functionality available for future Chromebooks and a few select ones that are currently available.
Google has released a compatibility list for the Chromebooks that will be able to support Android apps on them. Though, depending on how you look at it, this list may cause some confusion and the way Google has picked these supported Chromebooks seems arbitrary. As the folks at PC World pointed out, The original Chromebook Pixel sporting 8GB of RAM and an Intel Core processor doesn’t make the cut, but a variety of Chromebooks with an Intel Celeron processor and 2GB of RAM from 2015 seem to.
This leads to the assumption that there isn’t a technical reason limiting these older Chromebooks. The move appears intentional as Google told Ars Technica. The company chose to limit the list to those two years old or newer. Chromebooks are only supported for up to five years before they hit their end-of-life, but that still doesn’t explain why there aren’t more older Chromebooks, especially those from 2013 and 2014, to make the cut.
It could be a ploy to sell more Chromebooks, or there could be an actual limitation hindering these older Chromebooks from running the plethora of Android apps available. Given Google’s inexpensive computers have outshipped Apple’s Macs for the first time, Android apps will be a plus. Let’s just hope those sold, made the cut.
Did your Chromebook make the list or are you out of luck? Let us know in the comments section below or on any of our social media accounts.
[button link=”http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/if-you-want-to-run-android-apps-on-chromebooks-youll-need-a-newer-model/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Ars Technica[/button][button link=”http://www.pcworld.com/article/3072874/computers/older-chromebooks-wont-get-the-play-store-even-if-theyre-able-to-run-android-apps.html” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Via: PC World[/button]
