It’s finally happened — Google Play Store arrived on Chromebooks. (For Asus Flip, Chromebook Pixel (2015), and Acer R11 owners on the Developer channel, anyway.)
When Google first announced that the Play Store was coming to Chromebooks, we were told that the Asus Flip, Acer R11, and Chromebook Pixel (2015) would receive the update on version 53 of the Developer channel.
Sadly, only the Asus Flip received the update at first, with no word on when the R11 and Pixel might follow.
But now it’s here. If you own a Chromebook Pixel (2015) or Acer R11, head to Settings > About Chrome OS > Check for and apply updates.
We won’t go into detail here about what using Android apps on a Chromebook is like, since we already covered that in our earlier writeup of the Asus Flip experience: https://chromestory.com/2016/06/asus-flip-google-play-store/
We first learned about the rollout from a reader named Tony Barrera, who commented on an OMG! Chrome! post saying he’d just received the update on his i7 Pixel. We put an i5 Pixel into the Developer channel to confirm, and sure enough, it was there. Several Acer R11 owners we reached out to confirmed they’d received it too.
Update: this was one of the earliest Android-on-Chromebook rollouts
This 2016 rollout was an early milestone in Chrome OS history — Play Store and Android app support have since become standard across the vast majority of Chromebooks, no longer limited to a Developer-channel preview on a handful of models. However, both the Chromebook Pixel (2015) and the Acer Chromebook R11 reached their Auto Update Expiration (AUE) years ago, meaning they no longer receive Chrome OS or security updates from Google. If you’re still running one of these devices, treat this article as a piece of Chromebook history rather than a how-to — for a Chromebook that still receives updates and full Android app support, check Google’s current Auto Update Policy page for your model’s status.
Leave a Reply