Google Play Store Coming To Chromebooks

Google announced that it would be deploying the Google Play Store in Chromebooks, giving users the ability to use some of their favorite mainstream Android apps inside their Chrome OS-powered notebooks for the first time.

The company revealed the plans to integrate the Play Store in a blog post, stating that although the Chrome OS-powered notebooks were always about "making computing more accessible for everyone," that the continued growth of the Chromebook market and users' requests for more functionality and compatibility sparked the decision to offer the Android app market in its notebook devices.

"The same apps that run on phones and tablets can now run on Chromebooks without compromising their speed, simplicity or security," stated Google in the blog.

The inclusion of Google Play in a notebook device is similar to Canonical's Ubuntu Core, in that it's expanding the Chrome OS platform's capabilities in a growing market. Google prides its Chromebooks on the security features (also similar to Canonical), and the obvious challenge to the deployment of the Play Store in these devices is to see how that security holds up after opening the proverbial floodgates of vulnerability in the form of thousands of Android apps and utilities.

Google Play will start appearing on the developer channel with M53 on the Asus Chromebook Flip, the Acer Chromebook R11 and the latest Chromebook Pixel. Additional makes and models will roll out over time, and the full list of supported Chromebooks can be found on Google's support page.

Derek Forrest is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Derek Forrest on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.