{"id":12502,"date":"2026-09-24T10:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T10:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=12502"},"modified":"2026-09-24T10:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T10:37:15","slug":"googlebook-and-googlebook-os-arrives-want-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/12502-googlebook-and-googlebook-os-arrives-want-one.html","title":{"rendered":"Googlebook and Googlebook OS arrives – want one?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Google has released Googlebook OS, a replacement for ChromeOS based on Android and previewed<\/a> in May this year, with the announcement<\/a> accompanied by new devices from Acer, Asus, Dell HP and Lenovo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the Chromebook, Googlebook is not a budget device, with prices starting at $899. The key features are integration with an Android phone, NPUs (neural processing units) for on-device AI, and a hypervisor which provides an isolated Linux environment so that if your Linux OS is compromised or corrupted it will not impact the parent OS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Google states that “you can safely run any Linux developer tools, pull code repositories, or execute autonomous agents,” the reality is not so simple. For example, if you give an agent write access to a GitHub repository and then suffer from a prompt injection attack which infects that repository, the fact that your local Linux environment is isolated will not help you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Android integration includes “Continue On” which lets you start something on the phone and continue on the laptop. It is not a new idea; Microsoft has a similar Resume<\/a> feature in Windows though it is not well supported, and Apple has Continuity<\/a> which works with iPhone and Mac. I’ve used Continuity and it is somewhat useful but I do not often start something on a phone and then continue it on a Mac or PC. The little things are the most useful; having Apple Messages on the Mac is great, as is linking WhatsApp to the desktop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difficulty with ChromeOS and now Googlebook is that most Android apps are not ideal for a laptop. One can live in the web browser of course (the original ChromeOS concept), but for me ChromeOS only became attractive when Linux support was introduced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately Google is mainly focused on Linux as a terminal environment. Questions about GUI Linux apps are not fully answered on this Reddit thread<\/a>, despite the presence of official Google community engagement manager Mishaal Rahman, though a user comments that “GUI apps are supported via the Weston compositor on the latest Android 17 QPR2 Beta.” It is also noted that on ChromeOS, Google backtracked on GPU acceleration for Linux, introducing it but then making it unsupported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahman states that “our vision is to have an open, thriving platform where your apps, files, and workflows flow seamlessly between your phone, external monitors, and dedicated laptops.” In the context, “apps” means Android apps, not Linux apps. That fits with Google’s priorities but it is not so good for the user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Googlebook is more secure than a Windows laptop but also locked down other than in the Linux environment. That, and the priority given to Android apps, makes it of little interest for me, though it could be a good choice for someone who needs the large screen of a laptop with the security of a mobile device. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another used asked “is the Googlebook OS open source?” No official reply as yet; but the answer is likely to be no or not really; Google has notably retreated from open source on Android and even if some variant of Googlebook OS is published, key Android pieces will remain proprietary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google has released Googlebook OS, a replacement for ChromeOS based on Android and previewed in May this year, with the announcement accompanied by new devices from Acer, Asus, Dell HP and Lenovo. Unlike the Chromebook, Googlebook is not a budget device, with prices starting at $899. The key features are integration with an Android phone, … Continue reading Googlebook and Googlebook OS arrives – want one?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,52,1596,55,56,62,1519,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google","category-linux","category-mac","category-microsoft","category-mobile","category-open-source","category-tech","category-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12503,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12502\/revisions\/12503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}