Google Aluminium will be an Android-based operating system for laptops and tablets — “built with AI at its core,” according to Google. While Google hasn’t yet announced its grand plans, the future looks like it will involve Android laptops.
Google wants a shiny AI-first laptop experience sitting next to Windows laptops, MacBooks, and iPads. But, while I use an Android phone, I don’t plan on switching to an Android laptop any time soon.
What is Google’s Aluminium OS?
Google has spent the last year dropping hints about merging Android and ChromeOS. At Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit back in September, Google’s Rick Osterloh talked about how Android would soon serve PC users, too.
Recently, Google put up a job listing for a “Senior Product Manager, Android, Laptop and Tablets.” The job-posting name-dropped “Aluminium,” describing it as “a new operating system built with Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the core” and said it was “Android-based.” Mishaal Rahman spotted it and wrote up all the twists and turns of Google’s product strategy at Android Authority.
ChromiumOS is the open-source project that ChromeOS is based on. Aluminium sounds like the perfect codename for an operating system that combines Android and ChromeOS.
Google doesn’t seem like it’s about to axe ChromeOS any time soon, however. The job posting described how the product manager would be “curating a portfolio of ChromeOS and Aluminium (ALOS) Commercial devices across all form factors.” Lots of businesses and schools have standardized on Chromebooks, and it sounds like Google won’t be ditching the ChromeOS experience overnight.
Google’s job posting even describes hardware tiers we should expect: “Chromebook, Chromebook Plus, AL Entry, AL Mass Premium, and AL Premium.” Chromebook Plus is a higher-end experience with specific hardware requirements, and Google looks like it’s planning on offering an experience with hardware tiers for these Android-based laptops and tablets, too.
Android desktop experiences already exist
An Android desktop experience is nothing new. You can use an Android environment as a desktop OS today, complete with floating windows! Samsung has offered this for years as part of its DeX software. Just connect a DisplayPort cable to your Samsung Galaxy phone and connect it to a monitor — or project wirelessly — and you get an environment with floating desktop windows. You can connect a wireless keyboard and mouse and use it as a desktop environment. You could just dock your phone at your desk and use it as your desktop PC.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
Android 16 has its own desktop mode based on Samsung’s DeX, and you can use it on a Google Pixel phone. You don’t need a Samsung Galaxy phone for this anymore. After years of ignoring this and letting Samsung go its own way, Google is taking an interest.
Desktop mode can be a little glitchy — while Android apps can run in windows and be resizable, they really aren’t designed for this type of experience. Android’s desktop mode is technically impressive and neat in a pinch, but I don’t plan on trading my traditional desktop operating system for it. Windows, desktop Linux, or even macOS is an upgrade.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
I’ve even used Android on a traditional clamshell laptop form factor. I reviewed the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5, which offered both Android and Windows on one computer, swappable at the press of a button. It was a very cool concept, but it didn’t make me crave a full-time Android laptop experience.
I don’t enjoy Android apps on a laptop
The idea of a desktop experience full of Android applications has been tried repeatedly and just hasn’t caught on. But tech companies just keep trying to make this happen.
Microsoft itself dabbled with this and got burned: One of Windows 11’s big features was the ability to run Android apps, and that feature was canned pretty quickly. Very few people cared when Microsoft discontinued it. Most people just weren’t running Android apps on their Windows desktops. You can still run Android apps on Windows PCs with other tricks. But, again: Few people do.
Google itself already has Android apps running on Chromebooks. This has been available for years. Every time I use a Chromebook, I try out Android apps and always prefer web apps if I can find them. Android apps built for touch screens just don’t work that well on a laptop with a mouse and keyboard, and transforming the entire operating system into an Android experience won’t solve this problem.
Heck, even Apple hasn’t had much luck here. While you can run iPad and iPhone apps on a modern M-series ARM Mac, the Mac users I know stick to Mac desktop software on their machines — not mobile apps.
And, while Apple is making iPads better at multitasking, Apple isn’t discontinuing MacBooks: Most traditional computer users want a laptop experience and not just an iPad with a keyboard case masquerading as a laptop.
So why would I want an Android laptop?
I could already run Android apps on a laptop by buying a Chromebook. So what does an Android laptop experience buy me? Under the hood, it might be better for Google to have a single app and development platform, sure. But, as a user, I don’t get it. On a laptop, I’d rather use ChromeOS, which is designed first and foremost for mice and keyboards.
An Android-based laptop experience doesn’t appeal to me. I want a traditional PC experience with traditional PC software — the whole archive of Windows PC applications and games — and applications designed with a keyboard and mouse in mind.
If Google’s big pitch is that Aluminum will have “AI at its core,” I’m not sure that will really appeal to a wide audience of PC users. Every operating system is getting deep AI integration these days — aside from traditional desktop Linux distributions and SteamOS.
I hope Aluminium OS laptops surprise me
Who knows what will happen — maybe Android will be the next great laptop operating system. Maybe this is the moment that Android and ChromeOS fuse into a supremely powerful desktop operating system — a mass-market PC operating system alternative to Windows that’s more widely supported by device manufacturers than desktop Linux is.
It was always obvious to me that some voices inside Google wished they had pushed Android as a laptop operating system, too. Those voices are clearly winning.
But I remember covering Google’s ChromeOS for my World Beyond Windows column here at PCWorld more than a decade ago. While I always found the idea of a lightweight, browser-based Linux operating system intriguing, I was never a fan of taking touch-first smartphone apps and running them on a laptop.
Hopefully, Aluminum OS will be more interesting than that. But I’m concerned Google is just looking for a way to roll out AI features as quickly as possible to both phones and laptops by standardizing on a single OS.
We’ll see whether shiny Gemini-powered Android laptops will appeal to consumers. Maybe they will — but I doubt people will be switching from Windows laptops or MacBooks. Google’s going to have to do something seriously transformative. The “I want a laptop running a mobile OS” crowd already bought iPads with keyboard cases.
