Over the past few months, we’ve seen a number of reports suggesting that Google has been dutifully working on a plan to merge its Chrome OS with Android. This particular rumor first began to pick up steam following a Wall Street Journal report from a year-ago which claimed that Google was working on ways to “fold its Chrome operating system” into Android.
As recently as September, a few sources even claimed that a merged operating system, allegedly called ‘Andromeda’, was going to see the light of day on a new Pixel phone in 2017.
Now for anyone interested in what a merged Chrome/Android universe would look like, well, we’ve got some bad news for you. During a recent appearance on the All About Android podcast, Hiroshi Lockheimer — who currently oversees all work on Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast — explained that the aforementioned operating systems will not be converging.
“There’s no point in merging them,” Lockheimer said. “They’re both successful. We just want to make sure that both sides benefit from each other. So that’s why we brought the apps… Google Play from Android over to Chrome OS and then the update mechanism from Chrome OS to Nougat.”
“You’ll see a lot more of that happening,” Lockheimer added, “where we’re sort of cross-pollinating, but not a merge.”
For anyone interested in Lockheimer’s full interview, you can check out the podcast below.
