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Thanks to some reader input, we’ve been made aware that a missing feature we discussed not long ago that is now coming soon to a Chromebook near you.
That feature? Android Parallel Tasks.
So, let’s take a minute and break down what this is, why it is needed, and what it does when working as expected.
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hey folks Robbie Payne with chrome
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unboxed and we wanted to do a quick
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video to showcase an upcoming feature
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that should be rolling out within the
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next chrome OS update so right now we're
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seeing this happen on Chrome OS beta in
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64 so whatever stay will hit 64
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hopefully this feature will come along
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what we're talking about today is the
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ability to actually run android apps
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side by side simultaneously so right now
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if you'll take a look here I'm running
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the pixel book on the stable Channel so
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we're in 63 here I've got the Acer
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Chromebook 15 in the beta channel which
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is on 64 and in your Android developer
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settings I'll show you where to get to
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that in just a second you can actually
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turn on the ability for Android apps to
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run in parallel and not paul a state in
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the background so over here on 63 we're
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getting Paul stating I must show you
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what that looks like so say I'm running
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a game right here okay I'm going to
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start this and you see the animations
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kind of moving as soon as I tap her to
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actually move her and then click away
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the game stops I go into here and play
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but the minute I click outside of that
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window
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Paul's game now even more kind of
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frustrating is when I go back that's
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actually let me stick for a minute if I
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move back over here probably long enough
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so let's we'll start this and we'll
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start recording for instance when I come
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back over here you see the animation
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pause here and it's not pausing now
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earlier when I was doing this it
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actually would pause the game and force
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you to to actually hit resume it would
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do this automatically so it's going to
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do that with different things it's gonna
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pause States in different ways and so
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for people coming to Chrome OS from
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something like Windows or Mac OS and
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they open up an Android app and they
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open it up in a window like this you
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would expect fully for the thing to just
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keep running in the background it
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regardless of whether I click on it or
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not and so that's just one of the things
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Android does on phones to say battery
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well you don't really want that on a
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desktop and so we've seen signs that
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that was going to stop and we're
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actually seeing that come through now
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and so over here we got the same apps
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running ok I'm gonna do this
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exact things so we're playing a little
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bit of my name Evalia here I'm also
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going to play some temple run and you
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see everything's still moving and I can
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play over here and if you really want to
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play two games at one time hey you can
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go for it
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and I obviously can't really play both
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of these so I'm probably just gonna let
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him jump off the cliff there meanwhile
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we're gonna be recording our session so
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that we can play this stuff back later
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for me one of the best things that this
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is able to do is something like Google
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Analytics I can have running over here
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real time and every time I move away
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from and it's not gonna reset my screen
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or freeze I'm not gonna put our
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analytics up here for everybody to look
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at but you can kind of see that over
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here we've got stuff running real time
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and no matter whether I switch apps or
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not everything's still running and this
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isn't the most powerful Chromebook in
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the world and it's handling these things
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pretty much just fine so I imagine on a
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pixel book or something like that we're
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gonna be able to run all sorts of
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different things all at the same time
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and what that's going to give everyone
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is a better overall app experience so
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whenever they're going to use and open
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up multiple Android apps to use on the
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desktop whenever they move away from
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them you're not gonna lose the ability
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to keep that app running in the
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foreground because sometimes you know if
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you're working on a graphics intensive
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thing are you working on a word document
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and you move away and it pulls a state
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maybe it doesn't save you're gonna lose
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that work and so this is a massive step
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in the right direction for Chrome OS
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Android apps specifically so it's gonna
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make all this stuff feel a lot more
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native so if you're interested in trying
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this out first you need to move your
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Chromebook over to the beta Channel
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which is pretty simple go to your
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settings over here you're gonna go about
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Chrome OS detail build information and
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channel you're gonna hit change channel
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and you're going to select beta it'll
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download it prompt you to restart and
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you'll be in beta channel you won't lose
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anything moving to beta we've covered
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this before but if you come back from
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beta to stay well it will wipe your
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device so I know that going in
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beforehand if you go to Google Play
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Store at that point and click Google
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Play Store again and then manage and
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repair fences you get your aim Droid
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screen what you'll need to do is go to
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the bottom under about
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of ice and click your build member now
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saying I'm already a developer but if
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you click it I don't know like ten times
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or something it'll start counting down
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and say hey you're a developer which for
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most of us know we're not really a
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developer but it gives you your
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developer options at that point click
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into developer options go all the way to
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the bottom and there's this new thing
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enable parallel running of tasks keep
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visible tasks running when losing focus
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turn that bad boy on close your settings
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and you'll be able to do everything we
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just talked about
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see how that's it guys if you like this
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give it a thumbs up hit that subscribe
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button until next time we'll see you
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[Music]
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