Thinking About Android Studio on Chrome OS
- Paul Thurrott
- Mar 28, 2017
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47
Google is rumored to be bringing its Android Studio developer environment to Chrome OS. If true, it means that developers will be able to create and test Android apps on the same device for the first time.
This is perhaps a bigger deal than is immediately obvious. That is, it’s not just a developer story: This change would mark an important evolutionary step in the hybrid devices that are now challenging PC and Mac.
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As you probably know, I’ve written a lot about the decline of the PC and the rise of simpler and more personal devices like smartphones and tablets. About two years ago, for example, I wondered whether a then-rumored iPad Pro would disrupt the PC market. And more recently, I started pondering the impact if iPad Pro and other hybrid devices—Android-based 2-in-1s, for example—ever got sophisticated enough to take on the key productivity tasks for which we still use PCs. Could these devices plug the plug on the PC market?
But it’s not enough for those devices to have Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop, or an Apple Pencil, for that matter. They need to become a lot more sophisticated, to offer the same efficiency and multitasking muscle that PC and Mac users enjoy. And those changes are going to require serious platform work.
I believe that work is happening. It’s more obvious at Google, where the firm has announced and then begun releasing new versions of Chrome OS that can also run Android apps. But even Apple, which moves more slowly and less transparently, has given us some hints: After releasing a poorly-regarded and belated new lineup of MacBook Pro laptops last Fall, the company’s next big release could include three new iPad Pro models. To both of these platform makers, traditional PCs and Macs are the past, not the future.
So I think it’s important to view this week’s rumors about Android Studio running on Chrome OS in this light. Today, you need a powerful PC or Mac to run Android Studio, the developer environment used to create Android apps. But even on such devices, this suite runs slowly, in part because it’s made with Java, and in part because Google doesn’t control the underlying platforms on which it runs.
That last bit is interesting, isn’t it? Here’s the maker of the dominant personal computing platform on earth, and it doesn’t even have a way to let developers target its own platform using that same platform. If you want to write Android apps, you need a Windows PC or a Mac. Imagine if you needed an iPad (or whatever) to write Windows apps. The very notion is ludicrous.
So getting Android development in-house is likely a big deal for Google regardless of the veracity of this week’s rumors. It’s possible that Google greenlighted Android apps on Chrome OS in part to make this happen too. (Android is also based on Java.)
Today, creators—whether they’re writers, artists, architects, software developers, or whatever—use PCs and Macs because the rival mobile platforms just aren’t mature enough to handle those tasks. But you can already do light writing and drawing/painting on some mobile devices, and that evolution will only continue. Getting a full-blown development environment on Chrome OS (which also includes Android) is a huge step. A huge step.
I’m curious to see whether Apple responds at its WWDC developer show this summer. It’s certainly well-poised to do so: Last year, it introduced Swift Playgrounds for iPad, a simple and even child/education-friendly way to get people up to speed on its new software development language. Is an XCode for iOS next? With the ability to build iOS apps … on iOS?
I think it’s inevitable, and that only the timing is in question. So I’ll be following the news from this year’s Google IO and WWDC with great interest, as always, and an eye towards these types of changes.
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Conversation 47 comments
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Lateef Alabi-Oki
<p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">The point, and advantage, of a Virtual Machine based language like Java, is that the underlying OS doesn't matter. Google is not going to abandon this benefit in the name of some theoretical optimizations and efficiencies that have been repeatedly proven to be false. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">So the argument that Google doesn't control the underlying OS that Android Studio runs is mute because Google deliberately chooses to develop technologies that are OS and platform independent. In other words, Google chooses their products to work and run everywhere by design. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">ChromeOS is basically a stripped down distribution of Linux. Android apps which are basically Java apps can run on ChromeOS via Google's container technology. Therefore, it's not far-fetched that the same container technology can be used to run any Java app, like Android Studio. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Google is going to push their container technology on ChromeOS to its limits that it won't surprise me if a few years from now native Windows and MacOS apps would run on it in a secure and sandboxed manner without issues.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Also, the argument that Android Studio is slow because of Java is silly. If you don't configure Android Studio properly, such as assigning its build system (Gradle), and the JVM with more working RAM, among other tweaks, then you're going to be in a world of pain.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Most Android apps are written in Java. And they run and perform just as fast as any app I've used on any mobile platform that has apps written in C, C++, and Obj-C. </span></p>
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skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#93603">In reply to Lateef Alabi-Oki:</a></em></blockquote><p>Using Java to develop a sophisticated program doesn't eliminate the need to consider the environments it's going to run on. It's not as if Android Studio is exactly the same java code on every platform and completely blind to the OS it's running on.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>
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Lateef Alabi-Oki
<blockquote><a href="#93721"><em>In reply to skane2600:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>As far as I know, it is the same code that runs on all 3 platforms.</p>
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skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#93983">In reply to tpiselli:</a></em></blockquote><p>If you look at the download page, there are 4 different options: 2 for Windows, 1 for Mac, and 1 for Linux. You would think a single download for all supported platforms would be adequate. Perhaps the difference is just installation, but maybe not.</p><p><br></p><p>I understand how java works but even if the byte code were identical, that doesn't mean the "underlying OS doesn't matter". In fact java includes the function System.getProperty which can return the name of the OS that java is running on. This function would be entirely unnecessary if the OS was never relevant to a java program. Android Studio could use this function to customize some aspects of the program to be a better fit for the platform it's running on. I haven't examined the AS code so I can't say if this is what Google did.</p><p><br></p><p>My main point that is that true WORE language would enable all programs to run on all platforms without the developer having to think about any of the platforms characteristics. </p>
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Lateef Alabi-Oki
<blockquote><a href="#93759"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Yes, Chrome OS' security stack is different. It is more hardened than most Linux distributions. But the layer that will allow Google to "containerize" the Java JVM is likely going to be reusable across Linux distributions. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">The Google Cloud Platform relies heavily upon, if not exclusively on, Google Container Engine and Kubernetes. These technologies already "containerize" the JVM to run Java web applications and services on Google's cloud platform, which already run on Linux.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">So, Google is basically going to port GKE or Kubernetes to Chrome OS to run native Java apps, like Android Studio. I'm assuming in the future there will be a skew of Chrome OS, with tons of RAM, geared toward professionals, like developers, that will allow them to develop and run C, C++, Java and Android applications inside containers.</span></p>
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Bats
<p>Ya know…I am still waiting for the Android Apps coming to the PC, as Paul stated on April 25th of last year. Paul's headline: Over 1 Million Android Apps Are Coming to Chrome OS … And to Windows</p>
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skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#93630">In reply to Bats:</a></em></blockquote><p>While Android apps on a 2-in-1 PC device might add some value to tablet mode, I don't see much value added to a desktop or laptop. Windows already has programs in every category that Android has and they're usually more capable. Android is best for the environment it was designed for – a smartphone.</p>
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skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#93915">In reply to Jules Wombat:</a></em></blockquote><p>If you're talking about servers and devices for communicating/consuming content, then yes. Windows was never really the leader in those categories. But if you're talking about doing work (even as simple a thing as writing a book report for high school) than no.</p>
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skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#94028">In reply to Jules Wombat:</a></em></blockquote><p>Neither one of us have definitive proof of how people use Windows and Macs vs Android and iOS, but the ergonomic advantages of non-mobile OS's for doing work are obvious. Tablets are a reasonable plan B for doing work on the go and smartphones a reasonable plan C.</p>
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skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#94133">In reply to hrlngrv:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yes, people could write using paper and pencil, were able to do calculations by hand and play many games without any electronics, but I don't see the history lesson being relevant to this discussion. If you're saying that a Linux desktop is a better platform for getting work done than a tablet or smartphone, I agree, although relatively few in the general public use a Linux desktop.</p>