Chromebook Support

[Anonymous User]

It's 2022 and unless I'm missing something it looks like Chromebooks still aren't supported. Can anyone confirm this? Last year 37 million Chromebooks were sold while only 29 million Macs were sold. Macs are supported but not Chromebooks? What gives?

[redchiz1]

Chromebooks are browser based. 

[Heinstein · Accepted solution]

There's another thread on this somewhere so I'm repeating myself a bit...

Modern Chromebooks support Android apps and up until some point around 3 years ago the Now TV Android app ran quite happily on such Chromebooks.

Then the Now TV app was no longer supported and not available through the Play Store on Chromebooks.  It didn't "break" as far as I'm aware, Now / Sky just decided to not make it available for Chromebooks.

There may be a good reason for this, either technical or commercial, but I don't know what it is!

Given that the App runs happily on Android phones and on Android TVs I'd have thought there were no great technical blocks to it running on a modern Chromebook if Now / Sky wanted it to.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks Heinstein,  I'm a bit amazed by this seeing as how more Chromebooks are sold than Macs but I guess it will have to remain a mystery. RedChiz, Chromebooks are Unix based just like Macs. They currently support installing Debian apps natively if you require, but yes the big draw of them is they are perfect for Progressive Web Apps which is what the whole world, apart from Sky it would seem, is switching to.

Will anyone from Sky comment here or is it just for Now TV users?

[redchiz1]

You are very unlikely to get a response from NOW here and certainly not from Sky!

And to compare the Linux-based ChromeOS to MacOS is a wee bit tenuous to say the least. Good luck with running the NOW app on a Mac, you have to install a very specific player.

[Anonymous User]

Oh well, I guess I won't be subscribing then. Sky are so far behind in their support and mindset it's surprising.

I'm guessing you are thinking of Chromebooks from 10 years ago. You'll have to take a look at one if you get the chance. Much more cost efficient than Macs but can do everything a Mac can. Much easier to use too. Mac os feels like a throwback to the 90's when I use it.

[redchiz1]

Hey, I wasn't trying to start an OS war here! I do have experience of Chromebooks, they are great at what they do for the price. But comparing them to MacBooks? Come on, I'll see you the other side of dozens of browser tabs carelessly left open without worrying about it while doing some heavy lifting on photo, or video apps. 😉

[Anonymous User]

No worries. I have the Lenovo Chromebook 15 with an 8th gen i5. Half the price of a MacBook and I use Openshot for video editing, Gimp for photo editing and Visual code for development with easily a dozen tabs open. So yes, easily comparable with a Mac in terms of functionality and way longer os update support. I'm not evangelising, it's just most people don't realise that this is even possible on a Chromebook. But I'm not talking about the cheap Chromebooks here which is probably what most people think of when they hear the word Chromebook.

[redchiz1]

Intel i5? How quaint!  😉