- Several major Google services on Googlebook, including Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Sheets, and YouTube, run as web-based experiences rather than native Android apps.
- Google says this is intentional because it considers the desktop web versions of some apps the better laptop experience.
- The tradeoff becomes more noticeable on touchscreen and convertible Googlebooks, where native Android apps can be easier to use in tablet mode.
One of the biggest Googlebook attractions sounds wonderfully straightforward: take Android, stretch it into a proper desktop operating system, and bring the enormous Play Store library along for the ride. Google has leaned heavily on that app story, even adding labels that tell you which Android apps are best suited to a desktop. But early owners are discovering a curious exception to the Android-first pitch: several of Google’s biggest services aren’t actually running as native Android apps.
We’ve now confirmed this ourselves. Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and Sheets all run as web apps inside Chrome on Googlebooks. YouTube similarly uses a web-based experience rather than the regular Android app. Google Keep, on the other hand, runs as a native Android app on our machine.
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