A couple of weeks ago, we talked about how benchmarks have to evolve to keep up with the changing ways people use their devices. One area where we are expecting a lot of change in the next few months is Chromebooks.
These web-based devices have become very popular, even outselling Macs for the first time in Q1 of this year. Chromebooks run Google Apps and a variety of third-party Chrome apps that also run on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.
Back in May, Google announced that Android apps would be coming to Chromebooks. This exciting development will bring a lot more applications to the platform. Now, Google has announced that they will be “moving away” from the Chrome apps platform and will be phasing out Chrome app support on other platforms within the next two years.
Clearly, the uses of Chromebooks are likely to change a lot in coming months. Interestingly, part of the rationale Google gives for this decision is the development of powerful new Web APIs, which will have implications for WebXPRT as well.
As we’ve said before, we’ll be watching and adapting as the applications change.
Eric
