Enlarge / Google Play on Windows! It could happen some day. (credit: Ron Amadeo / Microsoft / Google)
Earlier this week, some Chrome OS code surfaced that suggested the Google Play Store would bring "millions" of Android apps to Chrome OS. Google has experimented with Android apps on Chrome OS, but now it seems poised to unleash the full collection of Android apps onto the "browser only" operating system. There's no official word from Google on how this will play out, but the very architecture of Google's Android-apps-on-Chrome OS implementation opens some interesting possibilities.
The feature is possible because of the "App Runtime for Chrome (ARC)," a project that implements the Android runtime on top of Chrome's "Native Client" extension architecture. Native Client is a Chrome sandboxing technology that was designed with performance and portability in mind, allowing plugins to run at "near native" speeds by taking full advantage of the system's CPU and GPU. ARC took a big step last year when it added support for the Google Play Services APIs, which many Play Store apps depend on to work.
The Play Store on Chrome OS would open Google Play apps to a new form factor (horrible Android laptops notwithstanding) but it could also be the tip of the iceberg. Remember, ARC is just a Chrome extension, so it works everywhere desktop Chrome works. If the full Google Play Store comes to ARC, it would be possible for it to work on not just Chrome OS, but also Chrome's other host desktop operating systems: Windows, OS X, and Linux.
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