It's looking more and more likely that Android apps will be officially coming to Chrome OS through the Google Play Store, after a brief sighting of an option checkbox and splash page on at least one device. And it's been a long time coming — almost two years in fact, since Google first demonstrated Android apps on a Chromebook at Google I/O 2014. Since then, we've seen the ARC Welder tool released to help developers port and test their apps on Chrome OS, along with a basic version of Google Play Services for the platform.

So it's no huge surprise to see signs that Google is about to open up the Play Store, and "over a million apps" to Chromebooks around the world. Indeed, the technical underpinnings of Android are designed to help it run on anything with enough computing power, whether it uses ARM-based hardware (like most smartphones), Intel's x86 (like most Chromebooks) or MIPS (used in some cheaper mobile devices). This isn't anything like running Android apps in a clunky emulator on your PC. And Google's important services are already baked in. Verizon is offering the Pixel 4a for just $10/mo on new Unlimited lines As AC editor Jerry Hildenbrand points out: Right now, the Android Runtime for Chrome includes a rudimentary version of Play Services that allows Cloud Messaging, Google sign-in, a contacts provider and OAUTH2 support, as long as the developer does a few extra steps to set things up through the Google Developer console. For full access to the Google Play Store, this restriction would have to be lifted. This would mean a full version of Play Services either built into Chrome, or a bigger and better ARC module. Either of these two things could happen, but it would take Google building it and distributing it for it to actually work. In any case, the technical side of things isn't what makes Android apps on Chrome OS so important. As an ecosystem play, however, it could be huge.

As an ecosystem play, this could be huge.

Chrome OS started as Google's big bet on the open web as the platform of the future. To a certain extent, that's the world we live in today: just about every major service — whether it's productivity, entertainment or social — has a web component. In the mid-to-late 2000s, having a computer that turned into a pumpkin without an Internet connection seemed weird and frightening. Today, that's basically every computer. But we also live in a world where Android and the iPhone happened, and where native apps aren't going away anytime soon, even on the desktop. The web hasn't taken over completely as the Google of 2008 might have hoped; it's a big and important platform, but not the only one. The web is an important platform. But it's not the only platform. Sure, Google has a large library of offline apps on its Chrome store, but these all still run within the Chrome framework. They're not first-class citizens on the platform the same way native apps on Windows, OS X or Android are. Luckily for the Google of 2016, Chrome OS isn't its only platform. It also has Android, running on over a billion diverse mobile devices, and with a runtime which is (relatively) easily adaptable to run on its ARM and x86-powered, Linux-based Chromebooks. Google isn't doing this in a small way. The boast of "over a million apps" suggests this isn't going to be limited to just a few big name app developers, nor are there going to be significant extra steps involved for devs. That being the case, it's nothing less than a shortcut to a full-blown desktop app ecosytem for Chromebooks. And Google could open the floodgates as early as Google I/O 2016 in less than two weeks time.