The ChromeOS hybrid laptop-tablets are absolutely terrible - both the software and the hardware are miserable to use. I wish Google would just release a refreshed version of the Nexus 9. It's really all I want in a tablet.
AKA the idea that the firmware/os/drivers are all bundled together and hacked to work on a given device simply doesn't scale. Its employment for engineers because very security patch, every upstream refactor, requires all those closed source patches to be rebased on the latest version. This might work ok if the underlying technology (linux) didn't change their driver APIs at the drop of the hat, or the device manufactures didn't play throw darts at the soup of ARM interconnects, ram controllers, and devices, everytime they spun a new generation of phones/tablets/chromebooks.
Apple can get away with the monolithic model because they have a half dozen fairly similar devices to support. There are android manufactures which have released more devices in the last 6 months.
Yah, google is trying to fix that, but without a hard line in the sand with respect to pushing non-core OS/driver functionality into standardized runtime firmware APIs (think powermgmt) and locking down the driver API (userspace or otherwise) and assuring that it takes a long time for API's to be replaced/upgraded/deprecated. The hardware/upgrade story will continue to be a mess.
I believe the only reason they didn't do this out of the gate is because device manufacturers wouldn't have signed on for it. Android is establish enough at this point that it's not like many device manufacturers could really step back from it at this point.
Treble is a strong step in this direction - but they need to take it farther, open up customization APIs and drop the garbage manufacturers pump into devices. The way Treble is right now it only benefits power users who have their devices rooted - who could update without the manufacturers permission anyways.
I wonder if their only hesitation at this point is the mess they're making with ChromeOS and all their other garbage... I think the Android roof was the right one to bet on, massive numbers of users with primary devices running it, but I fear they've done significant damage with their other offerings.
Because the uptake from IO to IO has been diminishing, as Android is already good enough for the purpose of selling phones, so most OEMs aren't even bothering with Treble (Android 7+) for new devices, other than flagship ones.
So Google is now forced to do exactly that if they want OEM to actually care about new versions.
The Pixel C was so much better: Beautiful screen, built like a tank, everything felt solid and relatively light weight, Android performed excellent on it and with Nougat it was even usable as a true productivity device because of multi tasking. I loved the Pixel C. When I tried to upgrade it to an iPad Pro due to it having reached its EOL, I returned the iPad Pro after a couple of days and kept using the Pixel X, until Google announced the Pixelbook. Then I managed to sell the Pixel C for about 300€ because it still looked prestine and the person who bought it brought it another 2 years of use thanks to some after market Android image.
I ended up selling mine after little use.