Pretty lame detail to be enraged about, but it is Google and this is HN. This aligns with Apple's timeline for killing Intel MacBook support after releasing Apple Silicon (2029 being the last commitment).
Apple doesn't promise how many years of support any device gets.
Apple promises all customers 5 years of hardware support past the last day the model was available for sale, and at least two years of limited hardware support thereafter.
In the UK, for iPhone 15 and later, Apple promises at least 5 years of software updates from the time that model was first offered for sale.
I would assume similar schedule outside the UK as well, but afaik it is only explicitly promised in the UK, due to regulatory requirements there.
For enterprise customers, Apple guarantee a minimum period of software security updates for macOS, but the exact period is kept confidential in the specific agreements.
Like the UK iPhone commitment, I assume the enterprise macOS schedule apply to all customers, and Apple just avoids publicly publishing it, I would guess to avoid some legal-induced headaches (which I personally think is the worst excuse, but I digress).
Lining up with Apple is meaningless. Apple didn't promise updates for a longer period and then pull back.
Seems to be more reasonable than this title suggests?
Some comments: "So they have introduced a major change and said any older Chromebooks bought going forward will only get 8. So its not a retrospective reduction for existing customers." (Edit: actually I think this comment is wrong, if you bought a Chromebook 1 year ago, you'd only get 9 years of ChromeOS updates)
"From my understanding of the article, it sounds like ChromeOS support is getting pared back for those devices, but the devices themselves should still be supported, albeit via a (planned but not yet in existence) migration path to GooglebookOS."
Saying "yeah, we promised you 10 years of support, but if you just bought yours the last two years of that will only be supported if you switch to a completely different OS. But happily some of our devices have a direct migration path (if that's not yours, deal with it). Better hope the features you need will be available in our new OS by then, because right now they are not" is a major rugpull and not reasonable at all
We don’t have any details about what the upgrade path will look like and it probably hasn’t been implemented yet, so this is all speculative.
If they didn’t do an OS change, they could still evolve it a lot over 10 years. Chrome could evolve too. You’re trusting the vendor to not screw up your workflow either way.
Of course, I don't think any schools are getting 10 years out of a chromebook, but some businesses might be.
The practical issue in this case appears to be that GoogleBooks branding is meant to indicate they are good at running Gemini and other Google AI technologies. Chromebook aren't.
I doubt the entity called Google is of one mind about any of this.
In particular, there are lots of schools getting screwed over financially. Maybe they’ll switch vendors, or use the money for education. Chromebook spending has a strong negative correlation with educational performance.
As a parent, I am supposed to have control over my kids’ personal information, but the schools firehose all the most sensitive kids’ info they have to an unlawful marketing firm that I do not trust. How do I opt out?
To be clear, this is only true because it’s been true for all screens.
https://www.classaction.org/news/microsoft-collects-massive-...
https://www.k12dive.com/news/week-in-review-april-6-2026/816...
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/12/...
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/journalists-sue-goo...
https://www.courthousenews.com/google-settles-class-action-o...
the world would be a much happier place for me too if I continued to bury my head in the sand and assume everything is a-ok
I don’t like Google’s involvement in education. I don’t like Google much at all. But we should still be able to examine this stuff rationally without devolving into conspiracy theories that don’t make logical sense.
They don't, they never have, and they won't (unless there is a blatant, illegal policy violation and lapse of controls internally). This is very similar to the controls and policies in place governing FedRAMP contracts or the control of PCI/financial or HIPAA/healthcare data.
Every single time? I sincerely doubt it.
Whatever logical business firewalls Google has between orgs for this kind of purpose seems pretty frail and thin from what I have seen reported.
If you work at a company that deals with education or HIPAA stuff, there's going to be even more of that.
Presumably Google aren't morons or criminals.
There are a lot of complaints you can legitimately levy, but "Google doesn't have enough of a compliance org to ensure eng behaves." is not one of them.
So my question is, what have you seen reported and what makes you doubt it?
Through your government. Maybe you could form a union strong enough but unlikely as you have more to lose than them, but both is a good idea.
Totally agree. Would love far fewer computers in schools.
…which is what happens today with public schools. Your case only makes sense if you’re sending your kid to private school and would like public funds to help pay for it.
School vouchers allow richer families to go to private school while preventing lower income folks from doing so, exacerbating problems with educational achievement.
Ultimately the debate here is “should richer people have to contribute back to society to help the lives of the poorer people”? Of course you can say no to that. But the majority of society doesn’t agree.
Poor people typically don’t live in the same neighborhoods as wealthy people in America. Wealthy neighborhood public schools tend to have lavish facilities from the tax base, so it’s more like “wealthy guy X doesn’t want to pay for the very fancy facilities he isn’t even using”, not “wealthy guy X doesn’t want to pay to send his poor neighbor’s kid to school at all”.
There are still schools rated much worse than others.
In my country your life is already decided at age 12- go to the wrong school and it's over.
I mean they may not use their local library or parks either, but they ain't getting a refund for that.
If you opt out and want your house to burn that is only fine so long as you ensure the fire doesn't spread, if there is signs it might spread out have to pay inflated rates for fire service to protect the other houses that you can't burn down with yours.
Are they going to make the switch automatic? It sure doesn't sound like the sort of transition that can be done automatically.
I think if you say "Chromebook" around most 20-something and unders, they have an instant negative association with the word.
Unless you are the most hardcore Google fan, I don't see why you want to spend $1k on a Googlebook instead of a Windows laptop or MacBook at the same price range.
And by this I mean being captive to App Store/Play Store, the weird “everything has to be inside Chrome” thing of Chromebook, the obtuse window-management contortions of iPad, etc. People expect to be able to install software of their choice on a real computer. I already have a smartphone. I don’t need a second giant one with a keyboard.
If they want to actually compete they should put their weight behind a real Linux distribution that works normally. Totally OK to add all the custom features they want, like running Android apps. But just don’t make it so weird.
(And no, developer-mode side loading doesn’t change any of that.)
All of their output is entirely dependent on internal product owners using Google products as stepping stones to ladder climb. Once they replaced a product, or did a giant 2.0 revamp, they move on and no one wants to maintain it.
I think you're right. Many of the students I've talked to have an immediate reaction of "slow, limited" when asked about a Chromebook. The early years of under-powered hardware and limited storage/memory really did them a disservice when it comes to brand
> ChromeOS devices will continue to receive regular updates and security patches through mid-2034. For qualifying devices purchased today whose 10-year support lifecycle extends beyond 2034, Google is committed to supporting your transition to Googlebook OS, with many devices offering direct migration paths.
In other words, support will be offered until 2034. if you're buying a new Chromebook today and intend to keep it for longer than 8 years, you're doing so at your own risk.
> Google promised 10 years of updates for all Chromebooks, and it’s now breaking that promise for anyone buying a Chromebook between now and whenever the last Chromebook rolls off the production line
So, they're changing the promise from now on, and not breaking it for past users. Doesn't sound like they're breaking their promise to me.
Now that I say that, breaking the promise by two years might’ve been a compromise. Maybe management wanted five.
First, it looked amazing - solid aluminum body, powerful i7 inside, 16G RAM, high-resolution touch-sensitive screen. And that amazing Google-styled LED strip that showed the charge when double-tapped.
Then the hardware started to fail. First, the shiny chrome letters saying "Chromebook" slid aside, revealing a glue-filled depression. I struggled to properly glue it back ever since. Then, the hinge mechanism seal failed, and a sticky substance started to leak from the back. Then the battery started to fail even though it was maybe 2 or 3 years old. And finally, the screen backlight started to fail, and bright spots started to appear from the edges to the point that it can no longer be used. Dead in 3 or 4 years.
For comparison, my also 2015 MacBook Pro 13 still works perfectly, except for the software - Apple also stopped updating macOS, and I'm considering just installing Linux on that otherwise fully functional hardware.
It should be illegal to force software obsolescence on otherwise functioning hardware, increasing the global e-waste footprint.
Replaced the battery with a $50 replacement one from Amazon myself, and I get like 5-6 hours of usage.
Inside the virtual layer, you get real ext4/btrfs and real terminal applications will run at near-native speeds (supposedly) but their ability to interact with other applications (Android side) will be limited.
In short, it's not a real computer. Not a general-purpose one, anyway.
Google thinks that the selling point will be that enterprises can have their locked-down environment in the Android OS which allows remote wipe capabilities and heavily-sandboxed apps while it also allows developers the power to run whatever they want inside their little virtual Linux sandbox (e.g. VS Code). Sort of like WSL.
What they fail to understand is that enterprises will want just as much control over that sandboxed Linux environment as they have over the Android side of things. Making the entire purpose of the device moot.
Another idea behind the project is that it will allow Google to sell laptops that run processors that are traditionally used in smartphones without having to port the drivers and whatnot to general, open source Linux. Things like deep sleep states with rapid resume should "just work" because it's using Android which was what the vendor targeted when they made the chip.
The foundation of the entire device is hacks upon hacks in order to avoid doing the right thing (and possibly giving up market share to generic OEMs that might make their own ARM laptops).
The actual solution to all these issues is for mobile processor companies like Qualcomm to just be good Linux citizens.
Android for mobile (at least on Pixel phones) has this too.
The "special" bit is the desktop experience. New Pixels have a desktop mode if you plug them into a monitor but it's not as fleshed out and doesn't have their Gemini-ified cursor etc. At least not yet.
I think your notes re. ARM and Qualcomm hit the nail on the head though!
This isn't an issue, the 10 years of support was promised for the hardware, not the software. They are fulfilling that promise by updating the devices to GooglebookOS.
Also, in 2034 things will likely be radically different in computing. A local llm will likely either make such considerations entirely obsolete because support will be easy, or all current tech will be taken away from consumers anyway and everything will be much tighter controlled and monitored.
Alternatively, if users want legally binding contracts they should not treat promises as such, and demand a contract instead.
You don't need a contract for that, if the statement is untrue the product is now defective. And if done on purpose this is usually considered fraud
That seems quite impressive when compared against the 2-3 years of updates android phones historically got.
Well this is up to the phone OEM's (Samsung, Sony, etc) not Google themselves. Google appears to be asserting more control over the software stack of these Googlebooks.
New Pixel phones get 7 years of support.
It reminds me of those sketchy companies on Amazon promising "lifetime guarantee" on their products when they know already they're gonna close shop and reopen on a completely different brand the very next year.
(If they _weren't_ in said position, it's still Google's problem but with some caveats provided Google actually treats it as abuse of authority.)
They don't (or at least shouldn't) get to keep the assets without also honouring the liabilities.
(things change in-between for a year)
I will support you less than 5 years for this car, if you buy now.
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Google didn't do anything wrong legally, because the good sold a year ago is not the same as the good you are selling at current point.
YOu can have different support schedule.
Yes, it's very shady shit, because some people would find Chrome book in blogs/review a year ago thinking, oh 10 years, only to find out now it's less than that.
It isn’t criminal, but it is illegal mostly everywhere.
What we see here is a strategic shift by Google; you need to connect this here, with the prior Google strategy of no longer open sourcing Android-related stuff or with a huge delay. This is not an isolated thing - Google is planning Evil again, as usual.
Isn’t it illegal? It’s actual false advertising. You can sue them, it’s just no one has.
In the end "help with migration to" isn't the same supporting the existing product.
And if you advertised a product with 10 year support that _is_ legally binding (in the EU) and a clear cut case of you losing around 10-20% of the advertised value.
Given that legal costs might be to some degree covered by legal insurance and it being a clean cut case this is likely worth the money. But also a case where google can "just settle and not care" as in many cases schools did more things like forcing parents to buy chrome books then buying them themself, so it's unlikely to amass any relevant damage amount for Google.
More funny would be if the judge rules "10 years promised? You are cable of delivering 10 years?! You have to deliver it! And for all chrome books bought [8;10[ years before the deadline not just the suing party".
Besides, I’d be shocked if any Chromebook lasts 8 years in a school! Kids literally stick metal in the ports to fry them on purpose, and drop and throw them, etc.
Not saying Google is good, just that they don’t care about this and have no business need to care.
I don't know that that's clearly true. Apple gives at least 5 to 7 years of updates past the last sale date for computers. (I don't know if this is an explicit promise or not; they have an explicit hardware support for 5 years and limited support for vintage [5-7 years old] equipment.)
I don't think I get to demand 5 years of support for specifically Sonoma or Tahoe on that equipment, but rather just N years of "some usable version of an OS and support to transition to it".
Replacing ChromeOS with GooglebookOS 8 years from now seems not that different from replacing Tahoe with Golden Gate.
The other alternative could be "we still support ChromeOS for 10 years, and will release security patches for all critical vulnerabilities that we find and fix after 2034" (but we might privately not look that hard for them...)
In reality, even the crazy levels of frontend web bloat still haven’t caught up with the M1, at least with 16GB of RAM.
Apple will update iPhones for at least 5 years in rare public commitment
Likewise many legal insurances have footnotes regarding how far they are actually going to support you in a claim process.
This is just standard operating procedure. Remember --- "Don't be Evil".