I’m running Android apps on a Chromebook, and it’s dope

Google said the Google Play Store was coming to Chrome OS, and now it’s finally here — in the developer channel of Chrome OS 53. (Eventually it will come to the beta and stable channels.) I’ve been playing with it today, and let me tell you, it’s liberating.

I should say up front that not every app will work perfectly on this early public release. Apps like Airbnb, Instagram, Lyft, Periscope, Postmates, Sprig, Uber, Waze, and WhatsApp can’t even be downloaded through the Play Store onto the touch-friendly 2015 Asus Chromebook Flip that I’m using at the moment. Apps like SoundCloud and YouTube couldn’t stream content, and I couldn’t do a video call on Hangouts. And you can’t adjust app window sizes to make them exactly how you want.