Android is a mobile operating system…right?
That’s been true for more than a decade, but it may not be entirely true going forward. In an on-stage conversation between Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon and Google’s head of platforms and devices Rick Osterloh at a Qualcomm event (via The Verge), the two executives did more than just hint that Android for PC is coming. They practically shouted it at us. You can hear it in the video starting at around 53 minutes.
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“In the past, we’ve always had very different systems between what we’re building on PCs and what we’re building on smartphones, and we’ve embarked on a project to combine that,” Osterloh said. “We are building together a common technical foundation for our products on PCs and desktop computing systems.”
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Osterloh expanded on that by saying Google wants to bring all of its Android AI features and apps to the PC ecosystem. Amon replied by saying he’s already seen Android for PC and called the new experimental Android OS “incredible.” They didn’t go into any other details about when and how this will be distributed, but it seems like Android laptops will soon be a reality. For fans of Android mobile devices, that’s very good news. Currently, the seamless connectivity between iPhones and MacBooks is a huge benefit of the Apple ecosystem.
To be clear, this isn’t entirely surprising. Android Authority reported in 2024 that Google was planning on doing this, while Google itself confirmed plans to merge ChromeOS (the operating system that powers Chromebook laptops) and Android into one thing earlier this year. We have no idea when this is actually going to happen, but if they keep talking about it, it’s a smart bet that we’ll see it relatively soon.
