Google Is Bringing A New Update For Android Apps On Chrome OS

Android users have a great asset to them that many probably don’t know about. Not only can you play your favorite Android games or run your favorite Android apps from your laptop, but also retain all of the productivity features offered by Google’s suite of applications. In case you still haven’t made the right guess, it’s Chrome OS.

Google’s Operating System, although by running Android applications natively, serves as a great supplement for an Android smartphone, especially if you travel a lot. The Android apps on Chrome OS are still struggling with issues which may annoy Android users. The biggest one being the inability of Android apps to access a USB drive on the device. While the issue can be disregarded for Android phones given that USB-A ports aren’t really prevalent, the inability can be frustrating since Chromebooks usually have a USB-A port or two.

The dark cloud, however, seems to be getting a silver lining as a commit in the Chrome OS Gerrit indicates that Google may soon solve the supportability issue. The commit added a new ARC flag to “allow Android apps to use USB host feature on Chrome OS devices.” As a result, the next available Chrome OS will allow Android apps to access files stored on USB devices when plugged into the Chromebook.

The changes will especially come in handy with media players, productivity apps, or any other Android-exclusive app that’s been accessed through a USB drive and you want to run it on Chrome OS. The changes will start rolling in upcoming months and you can access the updates on Chrome flags page. Although it’s not a major addition to ARC on Chrome OS by any means, the included feature will be hailed as a good news by users complaining about the issue on various Chrome OS forums.

Chromebooks have been increasingly trending amongst Android users as it not only offers a fast, simple and secure computing experience but also brings together the best of Android and Chrome OS. Google is continually addressing both major and minor user issue and as a result, the Chromebooks are topping Macs in overall shipments to become the 2nd most popular PC operating system in the US. Furthermore, by bringing Google Play Store into Chromebook, Google is aiming to build the next great experience that wasn’t even possible on PC platforms before.