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Lizzie
Next year will mark 20 years since Google’s acquisition of Android Inc., arguably one of the most transformative decisions of the modern era for the development of mobile and enterprise mobility. Without Android, not only would none of us be here to read this week’s Community Festival content (it’s been fantastic!), but the mobile landscape and pace of innovation could have been vastly different (where would Apple get their features!? 😉). It goes without saying the careers of many of us would likely have taken completely different paths, as well.
I’d still probably be doing disaster recovery 🙃
Android has changed a lot over the last 20 years. What was originally an OS created for cameras before launching on phones with physical keyboards and trackballs, such as my first Android phone here, the HTC Dream, has grown immeasurably to get to where we are today.
Some of today’s workforce may not even remember Device Administrator management, nevermind the Holo phase Google went through over a decade ago (it was actually brilliant, I miss Honeycomb & the Xoom, my first ever Android tablet).
The Holo UX, as pictured here (source: Wikipedia), serves as an excellent reminder of just where we’ve come from and how the platform has grown.
Obviously today we’re in the world of Material Design, but it’s not just the UX that’s changed, we’ve had entire derivatives of Android for various use cases - WearOS (Originally Android Wear), Android TV, Android Automotive, Android Things (RIP), Android Enterprise (of course), and many significant projects in between.
But this all begs the question: What’s next?
If you’ve been perusing the news lately, you'll have no doubt noticed we may be in for exciting times ahead.
Join me as I explore what we could be seeing in the coming years for Android, and its implications for enterprise. Do keep in mind it’s speculative, unless the PMs lurking around fancy chiming in with their own commentary down below 😉
Android & ChromeOS merge
The prospect of Android and Chrome merging isn't new, in fact it is already underway. As of June, Google announced intentions to integrate with “large portions of the Android stack” - presumably to make better use of resources & engineering efforts. Prior to that, Google was experimenting with ChromeOS virtual machines running atop Android’s Virtualisation Framework (AVF), raising hopes that would become the Android desktop mode we all desire (spoiler: nope).
Recently though more and more reports are popping up from outlets suggesting ChromeOS will fully migrate to Android in future. While it’s not a given, some additional indicators, such as the terminal app popping up in Pixel’s ongoing QPR beta, and likely Linux support in AVF effectively matching what ChromeOS offers today with its own terminal and Crostini (Linux on Chromebook), could allow ChromeOS to ditch its own implementations and focus on the desktop experience while Android does the heavy lifting elsewhere.
What could this mean?
ChromeOS and Android have an interesting relationship, and in my experience there’s a well-defined line in the sand for enterprise use cases where Android excels, and where ChromeOS is recommended instead. I’ve come up against this occasionally when advocating for Android TV management, equivalent to Apple’s tvOS (and maintain this is still a low-hanging fruit!) for digital signage applications and in hospitality settings.
They both have their own approaches to enterprise management, the latter with a separate licensing model on top of what customers would pay an EMM vendor to manage ChromeOS devices, something I’d hope would go away if ChromeOS does fully adopt Android’s underpinnings.
We could end up seeing some of the enterprise APIs finding their way into Android, as well as new management controls around when desktop mode could be used, what Chrome Web Store apps are available - if the store is available at all. Silent deployment of plugins and store apps.. all from a standard Android policy. It would be magnificent.
More broadly, it could mean seeing Android tablets, laptops, desktops, and even full convergence with a hybrid Android launcher-to-ChromeOS desktop experience depending on the form factor or the display(s) a device plugs into.
Convergence is a topic I’ve been interested in for a long time, so I’m aware desktop mode in Android has been lurking in the background since Android 10 without a considerable change over the years since - at least in AOSP - OEMs like Samsung, Lenovo/Moto, and others have been pretty successful in filling the void - not enough to fully convince me to entirely switch out my Mac & Linux devices, but they function great as a secondary option. If ChromeOS comes over to Android and the prospect of convergence becomes reality, it would be fascinating to see what becomes of solutions like DeX, or how they’d adapt, at least, but more importantly, it could usher in a reality where this really could be viable, even for the holdouts like me dependent on desktop applications.
Linux & virtualisation support
Even if we weren’t to see a future where ChromeOS and Android entirely merge, Google’s recent work with AVF in Android 15, which as above has seen builds of ChromeOS and Linux running, is exciting. One of the bigger limitations I have with using Android for everything is a reliance on Linux applications - desktop Chrome for plugin support, Android Studio, VSCode.. Even native graphics applications like GIMP or Inkscape. There are gaps today that only desktop apps can fill for me.
Android has its alternatives - some pretty good - many not good enough, and the prospect of running desktop applications through Android would be a game-changer.
For organisations though, wouldn’t this be a risk? Managed devices spinning up builds of Linux to run unapproved applications?
Imagine the furore.
Clearly this requires some enterprise control; I’d be surprised to see more than a simple toggle for allowing or disallowing Linux support in the beginning, which could be as simplistic as hiding the terminal app. That’s boring though, right?
It would be so much more interesting to be able to remotely configure the Linux image, hook the build into an organisation’s RMM/UEM platform (or support cross-platform commands to save a license fee on platforms that’ll charge once for Android, and again for managing Linux).
I’m getting ahead of myself, of course, and I’m sure there are so many applications for virtualisation that not only have I omitted here, but probably haven’t even considered being someone who doesn't manage these environments on a daily basis.
It’s exciting nonetheless.
Android for XR
So a little bit about Play Protect (GMS) certification first.
The reason we don’t see certified wearables running the same Android you see on your phones and tablets out in the wild today is due to the very strict constraints Google enforces in order to certify an Android device to run Google’s apps and services. If desired, you can read more about this here, but to summarise:
Devices must adhere to hardware requirements and support Android in a way that is compatible with the ecosystem, and the XR segment just.. doesn’t. Applying rules and requirements of a phone/tablet user experience to non-standard form factors doesn’t work.
I’ve helped a few companies over the years trying to work towards getting their devices running certified Android and it has been a lost cause - could you have a pair of smart glasses projecting the Android home screen with a particular app layout as the primary UI? Sure. Would it be a terrible user experience? Entirely. Almost every OEM building these devices has purpose-built, tightly integrated user experiences that look nothing like an Android phone for obvious reasons.
Oh, but what about Android TV? Those boxes don’t have a display. WearOS screens are typically tiny and don’t show the Android home screen? Your friend’s Volvo has the Play Store but that’s not a portable device connected to a battery (we’ll overlook it being a car).
These devices have their own certification categories with their own requirements, and these can all be seen with Android’s CDD, or Compatibility Definition Document. This is the public aspect of certification, the rest is hidden in partner docs.
Because there hasn’t been a category for XR, devices default back to phone/tablet, and that becomes the blocker.
But that could change.
With Samsung reportedly edging closer to debuting their XR headset, it’s not a stretch to imagine these may provide access to Google services.
It’s certainly not guaranteed, after all Google Glass was a thing and that never obtained certification. Times have changed, however, and Samsung being a very persuasive partner in the ecosystem will have high chances of bending Google’s ear to supporting such a form factor with all the benefits of Play Protect certification.
Obviously just throwing Google apps and services on an XR device won’t be enough, and the appropriate work will be required to make them function well, but this then opens the door to a whole new category of certified devices, and would satisfy a common(!!) request I see almost monthly to allow global, seamless and consistent enterprise support for this category of device.
To be fair, Samsung will likely handle this with Knox APIs directly as well, but that doesn’t help the rest of the ecosystem.
Again, no guarantees, after all Android TV and WearOS have been around for a long time without official enterprise support; the APIs are there for the most part, they’re just not easy to enrol.
But wouldn’t that be great? It would be a natural expansion from all the wonderful work Google have done in large screen and non-standard form factor improvements in recent times, too.
What’s next for you?
That’s my ramble over! How about you? What are you optimistic about seeing in the next few years for Android - in or out of enterprise?
Linux on DeX was awesome and I enjoyed every fleeting moment of it. It was probably ahead of it's time.
Yeah, would really like to have a desktop view available to be able to work on it like on a PC. Even in private where I don't like laptops and for e.g. my wife likes her tablet and would be nice to get rid of her PC as she could do everything on it with comfort. And on work similar as staff could work with the device they carry comfortable in the office as well instead of having a seperate PC.
