You may or may not know this, but Chromebooks have been stuck on Android 9 for some time. In fact, we can track the last major Android update on Chrome OS until February 2019. Yes, more than two years waiting for an Android update is a bit excessive, but Google has chosen to skip Android 10 in favor of working on Android 11, since this version of Android has a much better way of handling windowed applications. Obviously, on Chromebooks, this is a very important factor in how it all works together.
With this update for Android 11 finally arriving in a way that real users can experience it, it looks like Google is approaching some major changes in the way Chromebooks handle Android apps going forward. For now, this only appears for users on ‘Hatch’ devices (10th generation Comet Lake processors) on the Beta Channel, but is expected to be released more widely in the coming weeks. Let’s start with the big underlying change.
ARCVM is finally one thing
If you haven’t found ARCVM here in Chrome Unboxed, let me explain quickly. At the moment, almost all Chromebooks run Android apps in a container called ARC ++ (Android Runtime Container). This container was the initial adaptation of what Google is now much more fluent with Chrome OS: containers of all shapes and sizes. When Android apps were first launched, they built the ARC ++ container and it worked well enough to say that Chromebooks ran Android apps, but in the future will work on things like Crostini (Linux containers), Parallels (Windows via PluginVM containers ) and ongoing work for Borealis (Steam through custom containers) has made Google clearly rethink how we should put Android apps on Chromebooks.
ARCVM was detected some time ago and we have been talking seriously about its implementation for over a year. We knew that eventually Google would replace the old ARC ++ container with technology much more like what they’re doing with Linux apps, Windows apps and Steam games (soon, I hope): we just didn’t know exactly when the big change would take place. As we saw signs of Google paving the way for Android 12 on Chrome OS, initially it was rumored that Google would again skip the current version of Android in favor of the next one. We never accepted that idea, and I’m glad it wasn’t necessary, because Google’s fixes for Android apps this time around will really encourage a much wider use of them.
With Android 11 installed on the latest version of Chrome OS 90 Beta, it was also detected by Kent Duke of the Android Police, which is not just an update for Android, but ARCVM is the container that runs it. The screenshot of the construction details of my Acer Chromebook Spin 713 is a bit ridiculous to include here, but you can click on this link to see the reference in the text if you need more proof. The Android apps I’m running on this Chromebook are in the new container, and while I don’t really see any difference in performance – good or bad – this is an important move, as Chrome OS and Android continue to integrate more tightly.
On the one hand, it should make troubleshooting Android on Chrome OS easier in the future. Second, it probably makes future versions of Android much more compatible with Chrome OS. And third, it finally allows users to sideload apps on their Chromebooks, if they want, without putting the Chromebook in developer mode. As with Android, you need to enable developer mode in Android settings (touch the build information a few times in Android settings) and you will be responsible if things go wrong, but put aside downloaded apps on your Chromebook no longer requires the user to put the Chromebook itself in developer mode and that means things are much safer than before when sideloading Android apps. And much simpler too.
Application scaling has been fixed this time
Google tried to implement uniform application scaling in October last year, but things went wrong. The change caused all sorts of problems, and in the end, Google ended up pulling the update and holding on until now. I think scaling problems are much easier to adjust in ARCVM versus ACR ++, but that is simply an assumption at this point. Either way, uniform scaling is here, controllable (in the Android developer settings), and makes Android apps on Chromebooks feel much more at home. The days of tiny texts, strange menus and smaller elements on the screen are gone. Instead, Android apps look incredibly native now and I have to say that I love this change. I mean, take a look at how the text and menus in the Squid app now blend seamlessly with things at the system level in Chrome OS and how native YouTube Music looks more compared to the web version.
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Apps like Gmail, Google Photos and Netflix seem a lot less out of place on my Chromebook now with these changes, and I love the idea that I can actually start using certain versions of Android apps here and there. Mostly, however, I’m excited for all the new users who come to Chromebooks for the first time and who will experience a much better version of Android on Chrome OS. Will there still be problems with apps here and there? Right! But at least when you start a new app you want to try, you won’t be painfully reminded of the fixed nature of Android on your Chromebook. It feels much more at home now.
Dark mode for Android apps is also here
As Chrome OS gets closer and closer to seeing the dark and light themes of the entire system coming in, it looks like Android 11 will also be up for the challenge. Although not enabled immediately, in the Android 11 developer settings on your Chromebook, you can put your device in dark mode at the touch of a button. In doing so, applications will take on the dark theme that they have been assigned, just as they do on your phone. Until Chrome OS finally has the light and dark themes for the entire system, however, this will not be very effective for most users as it is. Here are some pictures of him in action:
For now, that’s all with Android 11. I’m spending a lot of time on this right now and we’ll probably release a video explaining how to make it all work and include other information we find along the way, but it’s safe to say that this is the ultimate beneficial end user update for Android apps on Chrome OS that we’ve seen so far. As a guy who tends to use web apps for just about everything, it’s important when I really want to try Android apps again. For years they’ve been there as an added bonus, but it really seems that these latest changes bring Android apps closer to being first-class passengers on the Chromebook train.
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