After several months in the rumor mill, tech giant Google has finally hinted at the possibility of an Android and Chrome OS merger. Speculations about the two operating systems being merged have been circulating for some time already. Now that Google's annual I/O developer's conference is underway, the rumor has once again surfaced in the tech community.

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Rumors about the possible merging of Chrome OS and Android dates back to the 2014 Google I/O conference when the then-newly-appoint Google mobile chief and now CEO Sundar Pichai teased the crowd with a cross-compatible app which can run on both Android and Chrome OS.

During Google's I/O keynote on May 18, the company hinted that the Android operating system is gearing up to adopt a new method of update which was first implemented by the Chrome OS. Tech analysts have lauded the Chromebook's update method, which usually transpires as a background application. This means that updates being pushed on the Chrome OS do not contain intrusive prompts or even progress bars. Updates are just downloaded automatically when available and installed without the need to restart the system.

Google has hinted that starting with the upcoming Android N mobile operating system it will adopt the update method implemented by ChromeOS. There are rumors that devices running on Android N will download and install updates quietly in the background and that the changes will appear once the system restarts.

Another piece of the puzzle surfaced weeks before the Google I/O conference even opened its doors. Some Chromebook users noticed a new prompt that appeared on their systems. The prompt appears to promote the full repertoire of Android apps which are already available for the Chrome OS platform.

Google subsequently confirmed the rumor during an I/O session. This means that all the apps in the Google Play Store are now coming back to Chromebook devices.

TagsGoogle, Chrome, Chrome OS, Android, google android, Google Chrome OS, Android Chrome OS merge, mobile computing platform, Chrome OS news, Android N, Android N news