is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
“Finally.” That was my first reaction when I heard Google would combine Android and ChromeOS into a single operating system. Android has long struggled on tablets, and ChromeOS always felt like too much of a stripped-down alternative to tempt me away from Windows and Mac. So last week, it was exciting to see a leaked first glimpse at Google’s Aluminium OS, and hear it may already be slated for an Intel Panther Lake laptop dubbed “Ruby” and a “Sapphire” high-end tablet.
But the future may not be coming as fast as you’d think, and it might be messy when it gets here. According to previously unreported court documents in the Google search antitrust case, Aluminium won’t see a full release until 2028.
Though Google’s head of Android, Sameer Samat, said last September that the combination of Android and Chrome is “something we’re super excited about for next year” — meaning 2026 — the documents suggest Aluminium won’t be ready to change the laptop world quite that soon.
Image: US v. Google (2020)
In a transcript obtained by The Verge from August 2025, Samat said that Google merely hopes to launch Aluminium in 2026 — “We’re working hard on it,” he said — and Google’s own lawyers seem less sure. In documents Google filed with the court, the new operating system’s “fastest path” to market involves offering it to “commercial trusted testers” in late 2026 before a full release in 2028. And while Chromebooks currently dominate in schools, the document suggests that “enterprise and education sectors” in particular will get Aluminium in 2028, not 2026.
“Even when the new OS that runs Chromebooks becomes available, it will not be compatible with all existing Chromebook hardware, requiring Google to maintain existing ChromeOS at least through 2033 to meet its ‘10 year support commitment’ to existing users,” Google’s lawyers added.
Some notable bits from Columbia computer science professor Jason Nieh’s testimony: He interviewed Google engineers and was Google’s witness. Image: US v. Google (2020) Later, Nieh added: “I don’t have a percentage. I just know that some of the hardware will not support Project Aluminium.“ Image: US v. Google (2020)
We already know ChromeOS won’t vanish from laptops right away. Google’s head of ChromeOS, John Maletis, confirmed as much to Chrome Unboxed earlier this month, adding that Google will honor its promise to give ChromeOS devices 10 years of automatic updates. But that means those devices may get those updates instead of an upgrade to Aluminium. Maletis told Chrome Unboxed:
... continue reading