Your Googlebook could run real desktop apps sooner than you think

Ask anyone thinking about buying a Googlebook what’s holding them back, and you will likely hear the same answer: apps. Nobody wants to spend $1,000 on a laptop only to use phone apps stretched across a bigger screen. Thankfully, a new project on GitHub suggests this problem might be easier to solve than we thought.

The project comes from a developer named MostafaXS1, who built a tool that turns ArtCraft’s apps into Android packages. If the name rings a bell, ArtCraft is Brandon Thomas’s controversial open-source collection of 13 apps modeled after Adobe Creative Cloud and Microsoft Office. Chrome Unboxed took the Android versions for a spin, and the results are impressive.

What makes these apps different?

Unlike most Android apps you see on a big screen, PhotoCraft, LightCraft, VectorCraft, and the rest of the lineup look and behave like proper computer software. They are written in Rust and run natively on ARM-based Android hardware, so there’s no web browser hiding underneath. You can move tool panels around the screen, edit on multi-track timelines, and control everything with your keyboard and mouse.

Should you ditch your current apps?

I wouldn’t do that just yet. The project’s own tracking puts PhotoCraft at roughly 45% ready for everyday work and LightCraft at around 61%. Expect some awkward menus, no advanced AI generation tools, and camera RAW support that relies on guesswork. Still, Chrome Unboxed found that using them on a laptop already feels like using a real computer.

Why does this matter for Googlebooks?

Here we have two developers getting 13 complex apps working on Android within weeks. That shows Android 17 can already handle serious work, and big software companies have little reason to keep dragging their feet. The ball is now in their court.

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