Chromebook owners can now play around with four Android apps

Sep 12, 2014 12:34 GMT  ·  By

Google has finally launched those Android apps for Chromebooks that it promised months ago at the Google I/O conference.

There’s only a couple of them so far, but this is just the beginning so it should be interesting to see where this goes from here. Vine, Evernote, Duolingo and Sight Words, apps that normally work on Android, can now be found on people using Google’s Chrome operating system.

“Chromebooks were designed to keep up with you on the go—they’re thin and light, have long battery lives, resume instantly, and are easy to use. Today, we're making Chromebooks even more mobile by bringing the first set of Android apps to Chrome OS,” Google wrote in a blog post signed by Ken Mixter, software engineer, and Josh Woodward, product manager.

According to them, the first apps are the result of a project that has been called the App Runtime for Chrome (Beta). As mentioned above, the entire thing was announced earlier this summer at Google I/O so it was bound to be happen soon.

In the coming months, Google will continue working with Android developers to add more of the favorite apps of the users of the operating system. They hope to offer everyone a more seamless experience across Android phones and Chromebooks.

Send in your favorite apps to Google

Google has gone as far as to set up a Docs form to get people’s opinions. They’re looking for information about which apps they should help transfer to Chrome OS. Those interested in sharing their favorites with Google can send the link to the Android App from the Play store.

Developers can also participate and send out their own apps. If they choose to do so, they should also add in their email address in case Google needs to contact them.

Google’s first round of apps cover a range of topics. For instance, Duolingo helps people learn a new language for free and in a fun way. Evernote, as you probably already know, helps people write, collect and find details that are important. Sight Words is an app created to help improve the reading skills of children.

Vine is perhaps the best known of them all. The short video solution that now belongs to Twitter has been growing in popularity in recent years and will likely continue to do so. On Android, it has over 10 million downloads, which tells a lot about how much people like it.