Windows 11 is beta testing Android 13 while many Chromebooks are still stuck with Android 9

Yeah, this one is pretty frustrating. I’ll be clear right off the bat, here; I’ve not used Android apps on a Windows laptop yet. The Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) only went live this fall, so it’s one of those things that has been on the radar for a while but hasn’t felt essential to try out. Our own Michael Perrigo has tried it, but from what I’ve read up to this point, the overall experience isn’t great mainly due to the lack of apps available (there’s no Play Store access).

What I’m here to talk about has little to do with the good or bad that can be found from running Android apps on Windows, however. Instead, I’m sitting here shaking my head in disbelief as I read that Microsoft is already beta testing Android 13 for their Windows Subsystem for Android when many Chromebooks are still stuck on Android 9 at this point. What is going on, here?

Wasn’t ARCVM supposed to fix this?

When Google introduced the ARCVM container, I thought this entire backlogged Android update process would finally be behind us. ARCVM (Android Runtime Container Virtual Machine) was supposed to give us an updated container that would make dropping the latest Android framework bits in place for ChromeOS simpler and far more frequent. Instead, it isn’t even on half of the Chromebooks out there and even in its current state, still only supports Android 11.

In about 8 months, we’ll be on Android 14, meaning Chromebooks are on the edge of being 3 years behind with Android at best, and 5 years behind at worst. As if this isn’t frustrating enough on its own, here comes Microsoft and their brand-new Android container pushing things to the latest version of Android available. Sure, it’s in a beta test right now, but it could leave that within weeks. And when it inevitably does so, I have little hope that Google will magically get their own Android container fixed up to finally get everyone on the latest Android build.

Android on Chromebooks is disappointing

As a Chromebook user that wants to use more Android apps, this is so disheartening. What started out with so much promise has somehow deteriorated into what feels like an afterthought as we finish up 2022. As a banner feature for Chromebooks, I’m a bit baffled why this isn’t one of the ChromeOS team’s top priorities. And if it is on the top of the list, why is it taking so long to get sorted? If there are technical issues that are going to keep us getting Android updates at a snail’s pace, the users deserve to know.

This reminds me of the early Gboard days when iPhone users got features before Android users. In that scenario, I sort of understood because Apple has one line of phones to write software for. But we’re talking about Android running on Windows – the largest and most diverse desktop/laptop OS available. I’m sure Microsoft’s WSA container has bugs and will continue to have them, but at least they are pushing things to the latest version of Android along with all those issues.

Google seems content right now to leave the Android container on Chromebooks in a perpetually unfinished state; bugs and all. If we’re going to deal with idiosyncrasies when using Android apps on Chromebooks anyway, I’d love to be contributing to the squashing of those bugs in a modern version of the Android framework.

Again, I’m not saying any of this is easy or that anyone really has it solved, but if moving forward is going to continue taking years on end, we all deserve to know what to expect. Too many Chromebooks are sold with the promise of Android apps as one of the big perks available, and keeping that ability woefully behind the development curve is becoming a real liability. Especially when a competitor is finding ways to push things forward. I wish I could say Google is ready to clean all this up in 2023, but I have no info on that front and even less hope at this point. Perhaps I’m wrong. That’s definitely what I’m rooting for, anyway.