Chromebook Flip Dev Channel gets Play Store

[Jonneh]

If you don't already have your Flip on the developer channel, you can go to Settings and click "About Chrome OS" at the top. There, you'll be able to switch your update path from "Stable" to "Beta" or "Developer". It won't wipe your device unless you move UP the list from a less stable channel to a more stable channel. But as we all know, a wipe on a chromebook takes about two or three minutes to be up and running like it was again.

Now that the Developer channel has the Google Play Store, we finally get the Android apps we've always wanted. As it is, after all, a "developer" channel, below that of even "beta", you should probably be expecting some bugs and frustrations.
However, for the first run of things, I have to say I am really enjoying it!
How are you all enjoying it? My more detailed thoughts are below:

I have to say it is currently a mixed bag. And I am loving every minute of it.

• Some apps will completely flip out (pun intended!) when you start them in chrome-os mode and then flip it to tablet, full-screen mode. And then it won't even let you close them...it's like I need a Force Close option. I had to turn the entire device off and back on. Good thing a power cycle on a chromebook takes 0.000003 seconds.
• The Play Store of course has about a billion apps that the developers did not make our brand-new, living-on-the-edge devices compatible with yet, so a lot of your apps may not be compatible from the store. Perhaps you can just sideload the APK and run it on the Flip? I haven't tried yet.
• Speaking of things I haven't succeeded doing yet--does anyone know if we can successfully move apps to SD on here? I tried with ASUS File Manager, but that doesn't see my SD card for some reason. I'm sure if it's not currently supported, it will be shortly, given the nature of local storage on Chromebooks and the freshness of installing our Android apps on them.
• My MAIN issue so far is that I can't get my Moga Pro controller to work! :-(
  I tried installing the Moga Universal Driver, and it installs, I can open it, but it won't let me click the "enable driver" button. It just sits there greyed out. The controller won't stay connected via Bluetooth without the driver (at least I think that's the issue). Anyone have any ideas?

What do you all think?

 

[Golfdriver97]

I have a question: In your first point, is the reverse also true? Starting the app in tablet mode to laptop does it still act funny?

 

[Jonneh]

I have a question: In your first point, is the reverse also true? Starting the app in tablet mode to laptop does it still act funny?

Hey! So I just tested this, and unfortunately yes, it is still quite finicky. It seems to go like this:
1. Start android app in chrome OS mode, don't flip the tablet back, and enjoy. Flip it back, and you risk it acting weird/looking weird and mysteriously disappearing.
2. Start android app in tablet mode, flipped back, and enjoy. Flip it back to laptop mode, and you risk it acting up again and mysteriously disappearing.

When I say disappear, it's like the app closes, but you can still see it in the task bar as being open. However, upon clicking it, you can't open it, as it's obviously already open, but frozen and disappeared. It's as if it needs to be force closed like a misbehaving app on a phone.

I'm sure these problems are either 1) why it's still on a dev channel, and not even considered for the "beta" channel yet, and/or 2) the cause is because these apps I'm running were in no way optimized for this experience on the chromebook flip? Or is that point moot because they're technically just running inside Android on the chromebook?

I should say, the apps work wonderfully when I leave them in whichever mode I opened them within.

 

[Golfdriver97]

2) the cause is because these apps I'm running were in no way optimized for this experience on the chromebook flip?

In the latest podcast, they do bring up that just because the CBs that can run Android apps doesn't really mean they will do it well. They are on older hardware that is probably barely able to run them.

 

[Jonneh]

In the latest podcast, they do bring up that just because the CBs that can run Android apps doesn't really mean they will do it well. They are on older hardware that is probably barely able to run them.

Nice, I need to listen to the latest podcast tonight when I get home then! Curious to hear what they think about it.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Nice, I need to listen to the latest podcast tonight when I get home then! Curious to hear what they think about it.

I will admit, I kinda paraphrased what they said. But they did spend a good amount of time on Android apps on Chromebook devices.

 

[Rumblee1]

what would happen if i changed the channel on my asus c201? if i don't get the 53 update, can i just go back to my stable channel without doing harm to my chromebook?

 

[N33k5]

what would happen if i changed the channel on my asus c201? if i don't get the 53 update, can i just go back to my stable channel without doing harm to my chromebook?

You will wipe everything still if you go back to stable or beta from developer channel no "harm" will happen just you will need to login and maybe reinstall a few things pending how much you have syncing.
The only Chromebook currently that supports version 53 with the apps is the Asus C100PA not the C201 or any non Asus Chromebook Flip models.

Edit: Additional info to clarify models supported

 

[Jonneh]

what would happen if i changed the channel on my asus c201? if i don't get the 53 update, can i just go back to my stable channel without doing harm to my chromebook?

You will wipe everything still if you go back to stable or beta from developer channel no "harm" will happen just you will need to login and maybe reinstall a few things pending how much you have syncing.
The only Chromebook currently that supports version 53 with the apps is the Asus C100PA not the C201 or any non Asus Chromebook Flip models.

Edit: Additional info to clarify models supported

Yep, what N33k5 said is correct. You only wipe your chromebook if you go from a less-stable channel to a more-stable channel. So if you switch from dev to beta or stable, it'll wipe. If you switch from beta to dev, going down, it won't wipe.

Good thing wiping our chromebooks almost doesn't even do anything since everything is just synced to our google account. Enter your network password, sign in to your account, and everything's just....there. Ha. If only phones were like this!

 

[Rumblee1]

I've got an asus c201 that I put on the dev channel. It said i was on update 53,but no luck downloading apps even though I had the play store. I went back to the stable channel. Guess I'll just have to be patient.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[droid.]

I am unable to get my Flip to update. It says I am on version 49.0.2623.112. I put it in the dev channel it gave me the warnning then said I am up to date. I have rebooted, still no joy. Any suggestions would be helpful. I have not tried to completely wipe it yet. Was going to try that later today. Wanted to see if anyone else had this same issue.

 

[droid.]

I found the answer thanks to Tickmc on Chromebook Central Help Forum: If you are running on a wireless Hotspot, it knows that you are not on a traditional wifi and therefore you need to enable update_over_cellular by pressing Ctrl-Alt-T to open crosh. Then type update_over_cellular enable

Then try running the update. This worked for me and I am running on a hotspot. Thanks Tickmc.

 

[Jonneh]

I found the answer thanks to Tickmc on Chromebook Central Help Forum: If you are running on a wireless Hotspot, it knows that you are not on a traditional wifi and therefore you need to enable update_over_cellular by pressing Ctrl-Alt-T to open crosh. Then type update_over_cellular enable

Then try running the update. This worked for me and I am running on a hotspot. Thanks Tickmc.

Wow, nice find! Glad someone could help out. I hadn't heard of that one before! A little irritating I'm sure.

 

[maxburn]

I tried a couple apps so far and things are going pretty well. Surprisingly well actually.

-Fenix: app not supported. I'm thinking about sideloading it, anyone done it? Too bad sideloading isn't so easy.
-Aquamail pro: just works great. Exactly like it does on a tablet. Exported my four email accounts config to dropbox and imported it on the flip no problem.
-Fruux sync app: works fine and once synced other apps can see contacts and calendar items.
-Google calendar: After adding several google accounts and Fruux sync it sees all my calendars.
-Mx player pro: seems to work great. bonus; after downloading the AIO codec pack in the chrome broswer I noticed in ES file that it was already in the android downloads folder where it belonged. So I launched a movie with some special sound tracks and it picked up the codec and worked.
-ES file explorer pro: I expected to hit problems here but seems to work. Bonus; the downloads folder in chromebook is the same download folder on the android side of things.
-Moon+ reader pro: This book reader gets a little upset when windows resize but it isn't too bad, pretty much works as intended.

As I look at the play store seems nova launcher is allowed, I don't even know how that would work?

 

[anon(181017)]

Hey! So I just tested this, and unfortunately yes, it is still quite finicky. It seems to go like this:
1. Start android app in chrome OS mode, don't flip the tablet back, and enjoy. Flip it back, and you risk it acting weird/looking weird and mysteriously disappearing.
2. Start android app in tablet mode, flipped back, and enjoy. Flip it back to laptop mode, and you risk it acting up again and mysteriously disappearing.

When I say disappear, it's like the app closes, but you can still see it in the task bar as being open. However, upon clicking it, you can't open it, as it's obviously already open, but frozen and disappeared. It's as if it needs to be force closed like a misbehaving app on a phone.

I'm sure these problems are either 1) why it's still on a dev channel, and not even considered for the "beta" channel yet, and/or 2) the cause is because these apps I'm running were in no way optimized for this experience on the chromebook flip? Or is that point moot because they're technically just running inside Android on the chromebook?

I should say, the apps work wonderfully when I leave them in whichever mode I opened them within.

Just wanted to chime in with the same issue. I was using Pocket Casts to watch some video podcasts this weekend, and had the exact same experience when starting in "laptop mode" and flipping to "tablet mode", it just kind of freaked out and then the Pocket Casts icon was still on the shelf but I couldn't do anything. Also couldn't figure out how to "force close" an app? I did find that if I flipped it back to laptop, then to tablet again the entire screen went black. Then when I flipped back to laptop, Pocket Casts had closed and Chrome browser had crashed. I was easily able to restore my Chrome session though, and then restart Pocket Casts exactly where I had left off. Interestingly enough once I realized this was an issue I made it a point to flip to tablet before starting Pocket Casts, but one time I forgot and opened PC then flipped it and it worked fine... Another time I stayed in tablet mode but minimized Pocket Casts to check something in a Chrome tab (that had been open in the background) and the same crash happened even though I didn't flip it.

Oh well, no big deal. Understandable development bugs, just inconsistent behavior.

 

[anon(181017)]

Speaking of things I haven't succeeded doing yet--does anyone know if we can successfully move apps to SD on here? I tried with ASUS File Manager, but that doesn't see my SD card for some reason. I'm sure if it's not currently supported, it will be shortly, given the nature of local storage on Chromebooks and the freshness of installing our Android apps on them.


What do you all think?

I came into this not expecting to be able to move apps to SD, but it would be nice given the limited built-in storage on these Flips. I was hoping to be able to store some app data on SD though, like have a folder in my SD card be my download location for Pocket Casts though. I can find the path I want using ES File Explorer, but when I manually type the path /sdcard/Podcasts I get a message "the location could not be created or located" Anyone have any luck with doing anything like this?

Edit: I got it to work by just replacing "/storage/emulated/0/" with "/sdcard/" in the default path, and left "/Android/data/au.com.shiftyjelly.pocketcasts/files" as the rest of the path. I'm not an expert on the Android file structure requirements, but I guess it was looking for the Android data folder that was created on my sd card.

 

[anon(181017)]

So it seems that the latest dev channel update (54.0.2824.5) has "broken" wifi connectivity in the Android environment. Android apps all say "no wifi available" and even the Google Play Store won't connect. Wifi connection is fine on Chrome browser and apps though, I'm posting this message on the Flip...

Anyone else experience this?

EDIT: So once again I managed to solve my problem after posting... this time just rebooting again and now all is well. I'll leave this up in case anyone else has the same problem after updating...

Another note relating to the laptop/tablet mode switching mentioned above, now with this latest update I was watching a video podcast on Pocket Casts. Starting out in tablet mode I didn't have the option to go full screen. So I went to laptop mode and the "maximize" box was back, so I clicked it. It went to full screen just fine, despite a message that popped up saying "this app may not display properly in full screen mode". Then I flipped back to tablet mode seamlessly, without the problems encountered with switching before... So maybe that issues is somewhat fixed?

 

[maxburn]

I'm having some crashing with resizing apps, there is even a toast message that says that an app might not like that.

Latest update clicking a link in Aquamail crashes both Aquamail and chrome. Have to copy and paste to open a link.

It's obvious there's plenty or work happening.

 

[Rumblee1]

Im on a asus c201 that just got 53. Do i still go into developer mode?