Almost despite itself, Chrome is growing in popularity as the go to low-end notebook OS. Products like the Acer C7 and the Samsung Macbook Air XE303C12-A01US gained a lot of attention for their price and specs over the past year.

The prematurely newly announced Haswell based Chromebooks look to be even better; with faster performance and longer lasting batteries making a compelling argument if the costs can be kept in line with current models. The ability to run apps (even if they are web apps) outside of the browser and disconnected from the internet is also a key change that will improve the usability of Chromebooks. Hopefully support for Chromecast will expanded beyond the current Chromebook Pixel too.

All of these improvements will mean nothing if missing support for essential functions and apps is not addressed. Case in point: the Citrix Receiver app, crucial for business and educational customers, currently sits in the Chrome Web Store with a paltry 1.5 star rating. If these markets really are important to Google for expanding the Chromebook and Chrome OS, you’d think working with partners to make these tools reliable would be a higher priority.

There is a lot Google is doing right with Chromebook innovation. Details like Google Drive storage and cellular connectivity without fees are useful and look great on paper, but mean nothing if Chromebooks cannot accomplish your most critical computing needs. Google will remain so close, yet so far away from consideration until they bridge these gaps.