Chromebooks aren't just competing with laptops, they also have to compete with tablets. Consumers/education/business are much more likely to buy iPads over Chromebooks because of the much better software ecosystem. Most of Google's services have apps on iOS so I can't really think of why someone would choose a Chromebook over an iPad unless they were completely price sensitive (the cheapest iPad is $300, the HP Chromebook 11 is $280). I think the success of touchscreen smartphones shows that it's not going to be the hardware keyboard that drives people to it.