Support our independent tech coverage. Chrome Unboxed is written by real people, for real people—not search algorithms. Join Chrome Unboxed Plus for just $2 a month to get an ad-free experience, access to our private Discord, and more. Learn more about membership here.
START FREE TRIAL (MONTHLY)START FREE TRIAL (ANNUAL)
We’ve written a few times about Droplet computing. You remember them, right? They were the ones that claimed to be able to run multiple apps in multiple containers on multiple operating systems. Sure, it was a wild claim, but we saw some of the early pieces in motion and left those conversations pretty pumped about what Droplet was attempting.
And then…silence.
Those original stories were written in June of 2017. 9 months ago. In the tech world, that’s long enough to become an afterthought.
In those months, we’ve fielded a handful of questions from readers but we’ve honestly had little to say on the matter. We were waiting along with everyone else to see an actual, deliverable product near the end of 2017. Along with all of you who were waiting, we were disappointed when nothing showed up.
Our communications with the guys over at Droplet were few and far between, but I honestly pushed the whole thing to the back of my mind. With the introduction of the Pixelbook, the furthering of Android apps on Chromebooks, and the newest news of containers (Crostini) possibly becoming a user-facing feature, I simply began to forget about Droplet. I thought maybe they hit a snag or got snatched up by some other company. I thought the whole thing would have to simply get filed under “too good to be true.”
Then, via an email from a reader, my hope was restored in Droplet once again.
What’s Going On Now?
The email was simple enough and of the “have you all seen this?” variety. It was a simple link to Droplet’s site with an indication that something was up. I, of course, clicked the link and was delighted to find a countdown and a message stating:
A New Era Of Computing Is Arriving Soon. The way your applications are delivered is about to be redefined. Sign up now and be the first to see how you can set your applications free.
Along with this message is a signup form and a countdown that ends in a couple days from today. Oddly enough, the countdown reaches culmination at 8pm EST which is 1am in London (where the Droplet fellas are from). There’s little else being disclosed on the site, and what we know at the moment can’t be shared quite yet, but it looks like Droplet is finally ready to pull back the veil and show the world what it’s been up to all this time.
UPDATE: The fine folks at Droplet have reached out and confirmed that the full unveil will happen at 8am EST on April 5th, regardless of what you are seeing on their website.
That’s all we can say for now, but the wait isn’t too long. Wednesday evening Thursday morning could be really, really interesting for all of the computing world, not just Chromebook users. You can read our earlier articles about what we should expect from Droplet here and here while we wait. Here’s hoping that after the wait, it is all worth it. We’re rooting for Droplet to pull it off!
