Google’s Android PCs might be great, but this delay definitely isn’t

After years of speculation, Google officially confirmed its plans to merge Android and ChromeOS into a single, unified software stack back in July of last year. Since then, we’ve learned that the company’s internal efforts are being referred to as Project Aluminium, and, most recently, we’ve even gotten an accidental glimpse of an in-progress build of the platform.

Now, as per freshly uncovered court documents sourced from the US v. Google antitrust trial (via The Verge) we’re getting a better picture of the actual scope and scale of Project Aluminium, as well as details pertaining to the platform’s release timeline. These new filings indicate that Google’s roadmap involves getting Aluminium into the hands of testers as soon as late 2026, with a stable release arriving perhaps as late as 2028.

Filed documents also reveal that the “timeline to phase out ChromeOS is 2034,” suggesting that Google will keep well on its promise to support existing Chromebooks for their entire ten-year lifespan. While the technical underpinnings of this operating system merger are doubtlessly complex from an engineering standpoint, the wind-down period for legacy ChromeOS appears to also be playing a very real role in Google’s slow-but-steady approach to bringing Aluminium to market.

Merging Android and ChromeOS requires tact

All eyes will be on Google during the Aluminium rollout process

Credit: Pocket-lint / Canva

The deployment of major operating system upgrades is never an easy undertaking, and this is especially true when making substantial changes to the technical underpinnings of a platform in question. With support cycle obligations, the necessity of feature completeness from day one, and a myriad of other factors all playing a role, Google has a lot to consider when it comes to how it rolls out Aluminium onto new and existing devices.

As a lover of all things tech, I naturally want to see Google’s fabled Windows 11 and macOS / iPadOS competitor hit the computing scene as soon as possible. Of course, more realistically, it makes sense for the company to engage in a slow, controlled release — by doing so, it’s significantly easier to stay on top of the narrative and to avoid the pitfalls of bugs, glitches, compatibility errors, and other teething pains.

Critically, Google’s delayed approach allows for the completion of existing ChromeOS support cycles, which could reduce the risk of potential backlash from users who find themselves unable to upgrade their Chromebooks over to Aluminium (not all Chromebooks will be able to transition for technical reasons, as per Chrome Unboxed). There’s still a lot about Aluminium that we don’t know about, and so it’s worth keeping in mind that Google’s internal schedule could change at any point in time.