Update from the CEO
googleblog.blogspot.com
googleblog.blogspot.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundar_Pichai
If you care at all about the security of Android mobile devices, this is probably a good sign.
EDIT: I wonder if this helped move Andy out the door? http://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/07/phil-schiller-tweets-lin...
Also, one of Chrome's most touted features is performance, which has always been Android's weakest point. Hopefully he'll be willing to assign more people to the task of making Androids work as smoothly as iPhones.
The reason for the hold out is the carriers, not Google. Google is very good at pushing updates to phones when it's not limited by the carriers (and Android implemented over the air updates years before anyone else did. iPhones still require cables to be updated).
For a Google SVP, much of the role is external. If getting partners on board is important and it hasn't happened, then you're out.
> The reason for the hold out is the carriers, not
> Google. Google is very good at pushing updates to
> phones when it's not limited by the carriers
Apple has managed to strong-arm the carriers into letting it supports its customers, and Google's market position isn't too much weaker than Apple.
> iPhones still require cables to be updated).
Google's customers get updates just fine.
Only for power and it's just a recommendation...
This simply isn't true.
Android is a Linux distribution, so most updates ought to be possible without having to reboot the device.
It's pretty much the equivalent of forcing a reboot of an OS like Android.
This is not an impossible problem to mostly-solve, but it is orders of magnitude harder than what Chrome browser has to deal with.
Doing hardware integration is a lot harder than writing an app. I wish more app developers recognized this.
(That said: I do think Google could have done a much better job at separating out the true kernel/HAL/BSP layer stuff, which needs to be done per-device, from the framework layers that are largely device-independent. There's no reason to force a full hardware test just to push an fix for the Intents framework or whatever).
The key is finding the right balance.
In any case, it should be a tradeoff the user controls. People have drastically different needs, think OpenBSD versus Windows for a usability/security tradeoff.
What's your benchmark? If you have access to the hardware virtually everything can be jailbroken. With the iPhone, however, you can't do it non-destructively (i.e. you can't get personal information). At least that's my understanding, if I'm wrong please correct me.
However, I am no mobile developer, so take this with a grain of salt.
I can think of a dozen things that could be done to Android to both mitigate against current threats and exploited weaknesses and either not interfere with or improve user experience. Unfortunately, we are long past the point where fundamental architecture changes can be made to Android. We are stuck with a system that allows execution of downloaded code at runtime, that never updates, and that blames the user for security problems. Android would have been wise to adopt some of the best security decisions from iOS.
The web would be a much more interesting place if we could hook up arbitrary peripherals. It's holding back the entire world from developing better computer interfaces.
Im enginering something, that was a spinoff of this thougths.. i 've go an answer balancing the good parts of the web with the good parts of the app platforms.. plus some concepts of biological cells..
it may be a party for google, apple samsung and the like.. but we technological people are back to the nighmare that were the 90's.. with multiple platforms.. and thats the only reason browsers became popular.. even when we were loosing so much..
here we are into the nightmare again.. have to create things for multiple platforms :(
You can't downvote direct replies to your comments. :-)
Android has a deeply secure design that runs each process as isolated, low-privilege users, needing to request services after passing through fine grained permissions. Do you contest this? Architecturally Android is much more secure than iOS.
The only issues remaining are getting security updates out quickly, though in actual practice this has proven to not be an actual problem (somehow people imagine that if a device is on Gingerbread that also means security patches can't be deployed, I guess having never worked in branched source control systems), and better vetting of the Play store (which will come. The Play store can be both vetted and agile/inclusive. They need to block the bullshit). Neither of this are the apocalyptic "that ship has sailed" nonsense that you are parading.
http://www.trailofbits.com/resources/mobile_eip_2.pdf
http://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2013/1/8/Conferenc...
http://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2011/7/14/Conferen...
If you think that Android has a "deeply secure design", than then you probably want to start at the top. Android sits somewhere between "gift to hackers" and "Windows XP". Phil Schiller's tweet was pointing out the consequences of this and how it shows up in successful attacks performed against the Android platform. F-Secure, even though they're an AV firm, does good work once in a while :-).
http://www.f-secure.com/static/doc/labs_global/Research/Mobi...
EDIT: I'll give you a few hints.
First, Android hasn't solved the updating problem. It's getting better but at far too slow a rate. Every day, hundreds of thousands more devices that takes month to years to patch are entering the market. Furthermore, poor patch management by OEMs and carriers mean that sometimes they think they've patched when they've really rolled back updates. They do this unknowingly because their software deployment processes are abysmal. See http://www.xray.io for more info.
Second, Android exploit mitigations are very, very weak. It lacks code-signing, one of the strongest mitigations available (just go ask an iOS jailbreaker). Apps have access to a shell. The Linux kernel is full of infoleaks that make kernel ASLR nearly useless. App Permissions, though many people think they help with this problem, actually have nearly no effect whatsoever on the ability to root/jailbreak/privilege escalate on Android. This is what I meant by "blaming users" for security problems, since so many people fall back on "educating" people not to allow apps with certain permissions even though, ironically, it does nothing. End effect: even if Android could patch, rooters will write new exploits when they need them, as they need them. It's getting harder, but it's nowhere near where it needs to be and we're on version 4 now.
Third, Bouncer has a severely limited ability to impact this problem. Due to the lack of code signing and the overall architecture of Android, Bouncer can't ensure that the app that it scans is the app that runs on the phone. Apps can dynamically update their own code at runtime. Bouncer appears to rely principally on dynamic, rather than static, verification leading to tricks you can play with timers and environment detection (these attacks have been proven). Further, what about third party appstores? There are dozens out there and you can't just say that they're all second-class (third?) citizens that deserve to get 0wned. 3rd-party appstores are supposed to be a key feature for Android, but they're unsupported entirely by these controls.
If you wanted to develop a mobile/embedded platform to bring a new generation of users onto the web and into your customer base, you should have spent about 5 minutes figuring out how to do it without opening them up to harm. Android is the way it is because it wasn't believed these design features (aka safety) couldn't be included in the beginning.
Secondly, code-signing is a very restrictive approach and is hardly without tradeoffs. If you're going to use iOS as an example, it strongly discourages casual development for a slew of reasons, and there are countless examples of Apple rejecting apps for arbitrary reasons, far beyond issues of malware.
Your third point is really only an extension of your second.
Maybe you don't personally feel you've had to give anything up for the security that iOS affords, but it's disingenuous to assert that there aren't any tradeoffs at all. Android's more open approach is more true to its open source roots. For it to be different than iOS gives us choice, which is a good thing.
Code signing can be implemented while still allowing for casual development. See my comment above about the hardware switch on ChromeOS devices.
My third point is regarding how the architecture of the platform complicates the ability to analyze apps that run on it for malicious behavior. The NDK, the access to the Linux kernel, and a strategy based around dynamic analysis were all design choices that impacted that.
I understand that Android wants to be more open than iOS but you're making the same mistakes the Android team did. Namely that there's no way to deploy the same or similar security improvements without sacrificing something else. It's just not true.
It is hard to take you seriously.
Let's be clear that the malware problem on Android aren't apps exploiting any weakness in the platform itself beyond the simplicity of pushing apps onto the market. They aren't exploiting that devices are running Gingerbread or anything like that.
These are apps doing exactly what they are allowed to do by the system -- after advertising their intentions and doing exactly what they declared that they could do -- but they are malicious because the things they are doing aren't in the best interest of the user.
e.g. an ostensible puzzle app that actually sends contact information to a third party (after declaring and getting permissions for contacts and internet access), or that sends pay SMS' to Nigerian sex operators, again after declaring and getting permissions for contacts and internet access.
When anti-virus vendors and please-pay-attention-to-us tiny security upstarts talk about malware, that occupies 99.9% of the space (if not 100%). It is a trust and validity issue with Google and the Play Store that requires much better vetting and culpability of developers, and vetting of applications (not in the "don't do anything that overlaps us" manner of Apple, but simply to validate the scope of functionality, fitness for advertised purpose, and lack of clear trademark and copyright infringement that is so prolific on the Play store).
That has nothing to do with the platform and everything to do with one store.
EDIT: oh wait, there you go blaming the user again. "Grandma should have known the difference between THIS app that requested her contacts and THAT app that requests her contacts and stole them. Jeez Grandma! Get with it!"
How is that not a design problem? I thought we gave up delegating security decisions to the user after we saw what happened with SSL?
No, I didn't blame the user. I pointed out that most of the problem with malware on Android, for the overwhelming majority of users (who don't sideload), was that the Play store is a wild west right now, where people pay $25 and make an account where they can instantly publish "Temp1e Run" that is actually nothing of the sort. This is the cause of the overwhelming majority of malware on Android.
Should apps be able to have those specific rights (such as sending pay SMS')? Yes, absolutely they should. The ability for apps to do more interesting things is exactly what differentiates it and makes it better. Simply saying "keep every app in a silo where it can't do anything" is not a choice users want.
EDIT: And just to loopback again, you again claim that malware needs to somehow break the bounds of the Android system to do its evil deed (exceeding permissions, cracking ASLR, etc). That is absolutely untrue in practice. Malware on Android, courtesy of the practically unmaintained primary market, is largely a study of social hacking.
Sure it has - buy a nexus device, get updates. The rest isn't Google's problem as they aren't Google's devices.
> It lacks code-signing
Wrong.
> Apps have access to a shell.
So? The shell they can access can't do anything the app can't. That's like saying apps can run code - no shit, what's your point?
> App Permissions, though many people think they help with this problem, actually have nearly no effect whatsoever on the ability to root/jailbreak/privilege escalate on Android.
Of course they don't, because those are completely unrelated. iOS's code signing and other stuff hasn't stopped it from getting jailbroken. Complex systems have bugs, who'd have guessed it?
Also rooting is an actual feature on some Android phones (such as all Nexus ones) - not an exploit.
> Apps can dynamically update their own code at runtime.
Yup, and as a result Android users get to enjoy real web browsers, for example. And languages with JITs.
> If you wanted to develop a mobile/embedded platform to bring a new generation of users onto the web and into your customer base, you should have spent about 5 minutes figuring out how to do it without opening them up to harm. Android is the way it is because it wasn't believed these design features (aka safety) couldn't be included in the beginning.
Wrong. Android is easily the most securely designed OS out there that still allows side loading, period. Not claiming it is the most secure, as there are obviously bugs, but the most securely designed. Desktop OSes are incredibly bad here, and iOS only manages to prevent it by stripping you of all your freedom.
https://blog.duosecurity.com/2012/09/early-results-from-x-ra...
Thank you.
Basically, in a bastardized form of the "Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick two."
I don't know who was the responsible party for Android's terrible security track record, but Dan knows a lot more about mobile security than I do, so I'm hesitant to say he's slandering anybody.
http://www.trailofbits.com/research/
http://www.trailofbits.com/books/
That said, Android is objectively a security nightmare.
( Linking to MacRumors is a bit worrying though ;-) )
This is highly ironic statement given that one of the biggest pain developers trying to build mobile experiences face today is the number of devices they have to test on, and that Android plays no small part in making it worse.
The drawer/closet you have, full of all those test devices? it's called the "Drawer of broken dreams."
And don't even get me started on distribution. You used to have to negotiate with carriers in each country to get them to carry your application. Now I publish on Google Play and my app is available to 750 million people four hours later. And if you build a good app, and figure out the app SEO, you will get hundreds or thousands of downloads a day.
So I think we owe Google some congratulations.
>So I think we owe Google some congratulations.
Before Android, you could write a Windows Mobile app and have it run pretty much on every Windows Mobile device and the same with Blackberry and iPhones.
The biggest problem with Android is that the OEMs and carriers abuse the open nature to make their own custom skins which are not compatible with updates. Google did not take a hard line on this like, say, Windows Phone did
Windows Phone 7 apps run fine on WP8. Anyway breaking compatibility is a tad different from fragmentation. If your app runs on a WP7 phone, you can be reasonably certain it runs on all other WP7 phones. With Android, you can easily run into device specific bugs even though the version is the same and thus you're forced to test on the real hardware devices.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/11/this-is-what-developing-for...
Google could have pushed harder, but they miscalculated.
Considering that Android pre-dates the iPhone (and thus iOS), the statement isn't accurate. This article cites 2004 and the iPhone didn't debut until the middle of 2007. It was indeed a nightmare, not only in the development process but in distribution. Good luck getting your app widely distributed across platforms/countries/carriers.
I remember being at CES around this time and the Google guys did a keynote where they made it a mission to get rid of all the different charging standards in use at the time (every phone was different, remember having to find a charger that worked for your phone?). It was a whole different game back then.
[1] http://readwrite.com/2012/08/07/4-real-secrets-weve-learned-...
[2] http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-08-16/google-buys-a...
The Holo theme is required to be present on all devices that wish to carry the play store. If you write an app targeting 4.0 or higher that uses the default theme, it will look the same across all phones.
Like with all massive ecosystems, change in the android world takes time. Google is addressing the problem and solutions, like instituting a required theme, are rolling out.
Give it a year, maybe a year and a half, and the need to support 2.3 will be much less pressing.
This isn't to say Android development is wonderful, it (often) isn't. And I've been increasingly concerned with the amount of "OMG HOW?" bugs that have been introduced into the Android OS and frameworks over the past few releases, but generally speaking the code you write for one modern Android device runs (or breaks due to OS or framework bugs) equally across all the phones, at least those that (legally) ship with the Play store.
I feel lucky that some kind soul created a compatible version of the ActionBar (Sherlock) to work with these out dated but still selling devices.
>The idea that every person on the planet is going to use the same phone with the same capabilities and the same size screen is a fantasy world iOS developers live in.
There are a billion plus PCs running Windows with various hardware, screen sizes and even different form factors. Yet fragmentation is not as big a problem as on Android.
The primary problem comes with the deep customization of the OS and lack of standards, not things like screen sizes. For example, look at this http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/12/10x120...
I mean: it's true, Google failed to enforce a layout for the original Android buttons (Home, Menu, Back, and Search). And device manufacturers put them in different places (sometimes omitting Search entirely) and used different art, and that was bad. And Google fixed it with ICS (a year and a half ago!), which uses soft buttons exclusively. So sure, it's a valid point.
But to argue that somehow you can't write a compatible app because Samsung put the back button on the other side from Motorola is just ridiculous, sorry. Get a better example.
Completely non-issue in both Windows and Android.
I was under the impression the problem with fragmentation was along software lines—i.e., not many people have the latest android, so people can't exploit it. Hardware is much easier to adapt to.
Obviously the real driver for "fragmentation" is that there exists a market which is (1) lucrative and (2) easy to enter. So everyone rushes in with their devices and competes. And somehow you think this is a bad thing?
Stated simply: "fragmentation" is a side effect of "market efficiency". The reason almost everyone (for the appropriate definitions of "everyone", of course) in the developed world has a smartphone (be it an iOS one or not) is precisely because of this efficiency. And you can't have it without a little fragmentation to go along with it.
Basically, your utopia where everyone uses one device not only doesn't exist, it can't exist.
Google, OTOH, has a significant amount of testing to do on most Android devices produce. Not only do OS devs need many devices to ensure the OS and framework continues to function, but most (if not all) devices will be run against the Android CTS (http://source.android.com/compatibility/cts-intro.html).
On a related note, I find it rather fascinating that Andy is planning on staying in Google.
Andy’s decided it’s time to hand over the
reins and start a new chapter at Google.
Why put the (sic) tag there? Should it have been "it's" which expands to "Google lets go it is Android head..."?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_di...
He won.
What's left for him to do?
Sit around and defend 70% market share for 10 years?
Get deposed in a lot of lawsuits?
I certainly wouldn't enjoy either :)
This is really incongruous. You don't move a project from having a dedicated top level manager to being one-of-many under someone else as a way of "doubling down" on it (what an awful expression). It makes no sense, if Google sees Android has having future in its own right as one of Google's top priorities, that they put it under management with somebody with so many other priorities.
I can only conclude that either a) Sundar is a temporary replacement while they locate someone of Andy's stature as a replacement to lead Android in its own right or b) Google has charted somewhere far in the future that Android will get folded, substantially merged or otherwise share some kind of significant synergy with the other projects that Sundar Pichai is in charge of.
I find b) quite worrying because it signals an end to the (healthy) competitive tension that Google promoted internally where both Android and ChromeOS were pursued as independent ventures and "may the best man win" would determine the outcome. I also find it worrying because no matter how they spin it, I don't see how this can not seem like a blow to the esteem of the Android team - they've effectively been taken over by another division, effectively falling down one step in the company ladder. To have that happen after establishing one of the most incredible technology success stories in history - I can't imagine how deflating that would be to the team members. I hope Android doesn't lose a lot of talent from this. A huge amount is going to depend on how well Sundar Pichai handles this transition.
It's an obvious move to try and blend Chromes OS with Android more seamlessly but I think it also means something else BIG at Google is coming--and not their everyday-'big'. As qualified as Pichai is, it doesn't make sense for Rubin to go anywhere UNLESS he truly is upto something groundbreaking.
My bet is that Rubin has a vision, perhaps a "moonshot" as Paige said, that impressed the execs at Google so much that it made sense for him to move on from his current position. It'll be interesting to see exactly what this is, but I have to imagine Rubin is upto something the masses (most of us) have not yet heard about...and his ingenuity will be absorbed by Google themselves.
Just lie back and let yourself sink into the goo. Don't worry about all that messy technology behind the curtains. We've got that taken care of. Have a nice day :)
Turns out that was true.
EDIT: for those downvoting me, how is "Update from the CEO" in any way relevant to the article's content?
Edit: fixed (it used to be "Google lets go Andy Rubin", which is generally a euphemism for fired)
Polar opposite to Apple, which is a white boys club.
EDIT: Another thought: Google has also done a huge amount of its growth through acquisitions, whereas Apple has done very few. That likely further pushes Apple's leadership to "old-school" people in the Valley: they haven't brought in large numbers of executives of smaller companies that effectively start at the middle-top in Google.
First of all, there's no "key divisional lead" of "engineering". That's not a division at the top level. That'd be a pretty stupid top-level division, in a company which is mostly engineering (I'm deliberately obfuscating exact ratios).
Second, the SVP of Ads is Polish, and the SVP of Youtube is Persian. So that's two more things wrong with the four examples.
Indian: Chrome/Apps/Android, G+, and Sales/Business.
Not Indian: Ads, Search, YouTube, TechInfra, Finance, Legal, Sergei (a law unto himself), Geo/Commerce, Motorola, HR, PR, .....
In short, who the heck is Benedict Evans, and given that he is gibbering, why are you quoting him?
thanks for clearing this up, hard to find the real org chart of google.
Several easy searches, like google.com/search?q=google+management or "google svp", lead to this page: http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/
You also get some media reports from 2011, which discuss several key players from that era.
I admit that doesn't tell you about "key divisional leads", but it does give you a list of who Google thinks is worth publishing about.
As for Ben Evans's tweet, he just made some random shit up. Again, 3/4 of the people he mentions as being Indian are NOT INDIAN.
http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/
"Nikesh oversees all revenue and customer operations" - revenue, and more.
Two SVPs are listed for specifically for engineering, both Indian.
Android and Chrome, obviously. And there is no bio given for Salar Kamangar, Youtube, which sounded as thought it could have been an Indian name but obviously wasn't.
That's quite a high proportion of Indian people in senior positions, don't you think?
Beyond that, you're getting very upset by minor lack of precision in a tweet, of all things.
-Benedict Evans
So factually wrong.
As an app developer, in Canada (not Canadian however) i'm excited that RIM have attempted to prevent further fragmentation by sticking close to the Android stack, however i really don't want to deal with the distribution and other issues (such as screens, OS bugs etc) that i'm sure will come with releasing on a 3rd platform.
I feel like we're dealing with the issues similar to what were encountered during the 17-1800's with different size railway tracks. Is it just a matter of time until we agree upon a standard?
Is this better or worse than developing for a completely different platform (i.e. BB<10, WP7/8, etc)?
Overhead, it would be great if Blackberry could just start making Android phones...
1. Microsoft support for Windows XP ends in about a year leaving a huge chunk of their users orphaned. 2. PC sales are flatlining... there's a sense among users that performance is getting to be "good enough" 3. Apple isn't really even trying to compete in countries that aren't somewhat well to do. 4. The ARM Cortex-A15 will help bring those ARM mini-pc sticks and net tops up to task for desktop work.
Even considering the subset of Android that is "open source" the development process is closed and we just get code drops after product releases. It's like Apple used to do when they were playing the game with Darwin. They're doing a lot of work to avoid and purge LGPL and GPL code so they can work this way. It's not even free to use for vendors, you need to pay licensing fees to get a useful system out of it and sign contracts subjecting you to Google's whims.
- Google is a huge pusher of web platform. They want it on mobile.
- They are pushing new APIs to HTML5 everyday to make it more suitable for mobile
- Google is the only one that can make real mobile web apps a reality
- Did you ever see that metal android status in Google campus? They want choromize the AndriodChrome/ChromeOS and Android are very different. Neither is going to supplant the other.
They also have some clashing goals: Chrome wants to be more security paranoid than Android. In theory Google can find Android malware authors, cut them off from access to Google Play, and kill bad apps in the field, while Chrome is exposed to both malevolent and hacked Web sites.
I see harmonization as more of a product management activity than any particular technical choice.
But I guess Sundar Pichai isn't a bad choice, either, especially if they plan on unifying the 2 platforms. But he's still more of a "core" product guy, than a human interface guy. I just hope he at least leaves Matias Duarte enough independence.
Simplicity and security, fine. But speed? That's hardly the reason people prefer Chrome these days.
edit: not sure why I'm being downvoted
In particular, page rendering and repaints appear noticeably faster in Chrome than in Firefox of Opera. However, I notice the difference more on Linux than I do on my Windows machine.
http://www.igvita.com/posa/high-performance-networking-in-go...
Just add in Bellard's jslinux, and you can go 'round again.
Android is powered by Java apps (mostly). Java apps run in a virtual machine, just like web apps. Java apps are no more native than Chrome packaged apps.
Move Native Client for ARM into Chrome on Android (or, wait until PNaCl is ready, and move that into Chrome for Android).
Focus effort on exposing functionality currently available to native Android apps through web APIs in Chrome to make Chrome apps (using NaCl/PNaCl where that kind of performance is needed), rather than Dalvik ones, the preferred mechanism for delivering apps on Android.
At that point, Android and ChromeOS are pretty much the same thing.
That's a merge.
But would that improve the Android platform? I'm wondering if it would be confusing or complicated for users, getting some apps from play and other from the Chrome store. Having apps in the launcher and some other apps you have to run from Chrome. Although at that point Google could merge the Chrome store and Google Play and have shortcuts for Chrome apps that launch a chrome-less browser to look native. Now that I've though about it I think it could work rather well, but I'm still wondering what would be the benefit for the users of Android.
Edit: Now that I've seen vibrunazo's comment I think I get it. If Google build a web programming api that is the same as Android's programming for one is programming for the other. I think that would be truly awesome indeed, I enjoy developing for android, not so much for web.
I can't see both exist at the same time for much longer, and Android is encroaching on ChromeOS' domain much faster than the other way around.
I'm predicting that ChromeOS will be shut down within a couple of years.
But it's comforting that there are people that just think of it as just another web browser - that's the whole point, just think of it as a web browsing appliance that "just works like a browser" -- even though it's not.
Given the same base OS (Linux) in Android and ChromeOS and much of the same sorts of things. The redundancy of having two teams is pretty obvious. So if everyone agrees that you're going to do both going forward (and I think this is a ringing endorsement of ChromeOS as a 'long term' bet by Google) it only makes sense to make one team out of them.
Then the question becomes who leads it? The guy who leads ChromeOS or the guy who leads Android? Andy wasn't a big fan of ChromeOS when I was there, I don't know if that changed, his passion was making a better phone experience. I don't think I ever talked to or hear Sundar speak when I was there so I don't know what he thinks about phones.
So Sundar gets the nod and Andy gets to pick his next role (or exit which isn't uncommon in these situations). I don't doubt Andy would be on the short list of a number of CEO search committees so perhaps he'll pop up as the new CEO of Sony or something.
Add to that the pressure brought on by Microsoft which runs almost the same version of OS on its phone and PC. This will allow them to innovate much faster. Google wants to be there. So even though the brand name will stay, Android as n OS will evolve to what is Chrome today. Completely controlled by Google.
The Chromium build system is also more suited to building an OS than a Java application. I'll assume that Dalvik stays, and that the Android API is supported.
The Android window manager is pretty powerful (actually underutilized on phone form factors, as it supports movable frames and overlap, though that is not apparent from using it. Chrome has it's own window manager, as well as it's own desktop UI.
One question might be what direction Google TV goes in, possible with a more exclusive partner arangement. Does it make sense to build Google TV apps on Android, or should it move to more of a web model using Chrome? (This isn't neccessarily assuming that Google TV survives as it's own product line).
I haven't seen what information has been publically released about Google Glass development, but it's UI could be accomplished equally with Android or Chrome underneath, and eventually it makes sense for them to be webapps.
Another possibility, seemingly out there, would be for Android to move towards a WebOS/FirefoxOS model where core applications are built using HTML and interfacing with exposed libraries, but Android apps would still be first class citizens.