You must be kidding, right?
By that standard, my monitor can run any app in the world... as long as I plug it into a computer that runs it!
Thin clients have been a thing for a while. They don't run apps. That's the point.
No, he's not. You can run Android applications on the device, they're not running remotely. You can also run Linux applications using Crostini, on the device.
The real limitation I found with either of these approaches is that they are sandboxed in such a way as the apps are always hobbled. Android applications can only reach a sandboxed file system. Linux apps can't use GPU. Neither can read USB storage. Stuff like that.
Some of those may be fixed now, but after trying for a couple of years, I eventually gave up on ChromeOS ever working as advertised in that regard. Running applications on ChromeOS is a sort of toy feature that might work, but if it doesn't, don't expect any attention in making it work, because you're the weirdo trying to run apps on ChromeOS.
>run almost any app on the planet with Chrome Remote Desktop
Sure, any device that can run RealVNC is capable of running "almost any app on the planet" then.
Anyway why waste money on a Chromebook when GNU/Linux laptops are much cheaper or have similar price points.
Well, yeah, and if someone says your monitor sucks because it can’t even run apps, that’s exactly what your response would be. That’s not a slight against your monitor or against a Chromebook.
Makes sense.
Similarly, a car seat is a vehicle: it can get a person to another place (as long as it's installed in a car).
Isn't that the entire point of a dumb terminal, which a Chromebook essentially is?
Chromebooks are the end result of making terminals smarter and smarter until they're just computers with artificial restrictions on which programs they can run. That's a valid product if you want to subject yourself (retail chromebooks) or others (school fleets) to such restrictions, but pretending it's innovative because you have to work around limitations you needlessly imposed on yourself is a bit daft.
But, we can acknowledge the real reason what they're doing with Chromebook is interesting: security.
If you take away the keys to my home I will not feel more secure, nor be more secure - I will be more ignorant about security, that's it. The same applies here.