

That’s to protect the very secure ChromeOS system from possible attacks through Android Apps or data. Think of it as Android running in a self-contained Virtual Machine. Turns out Android Apps in ChromeOS are running in Linux Containers. But after 15 minutes using the Chromebook’s File Manager to find it to attach to an email, I had to conclude that simply wasn’t going to happen. The photo I edited in Snapseed is clearly in Snapseed. The important surprise came as I began assembling links to my Show Notes and the audio file to send to Allison. Amazon has a pre-release order page for an upgraded $299 Acer R11 Touchscreen with 32GB of storage and an Intel Processor.

It’s possible this will be fixed in future software, though another solution is increasing the standard size of internal storage. I worked around that by copying photos from its SD Card to internal storage so I could edit them in Snapseed. My little Flip, with just 16GB Internal, seems only able to access Android apps and data from its internal 16GB. I found one limitation followed by a related, and important, surprise. What’s to say? The three Apps work on the Flip in the same way as on my Android Phone and Tablet, and that’s quite well. To test, I installed three of my favorites, Firefox, the Snapseed Photo Editor, and KeePass Droid for local storage and creation of encrypted passwords.

That said, how well do Android Apps work on a Chromebook? Will the option to install Android Apps be a market winning game changer for ChromeOS? It certainly adds a new level of utility to systems which have none of the maintenance or malware problems of Windows, and which sell for as little as $149 new. What’s new is that Google just released the stable version of ChromeOS 53 which brings a potentially huge number of Android’s 2.2 million Apps to Chromebooks, beginning with the Chromebook Flip and Acer’s R11, both touchscreens in a convertible form factor. The 4GB Flip’s current Amazon price is $269 $335. The 2015 i3 Toshiba Chromebook remains on Amazon for $476 even though Toshiba is reported to be withdrawing from the “general”computer market ( /…). Nearly a year later, I’m very pleased with both. Text of that review is in Nosillacast 551. In November, 2015 I reported about my new Asus Chromebook Flip and 2015 Toshiba Chromebook 2 with Intel i3.
