They couldn't without some Rosetta-like layer. It'd lock their phones out of too many apps.

> They couldn't without some Rosetta-like layer

You mean something like the Android runtime (ART) that comes bundled with Android? Moat apps don't make use of native code, and Google has been making the use if native code more difficult with each subsequent Android release.

Yes, I was specifically referring to apps that use native code. I wasn't aware though that Google has been interfering with that.

Chrome OS already has an ARM emulator so that Android apps with ARM-only native libraries can run on x86 CrOS systems.

If Google really wants to support RISC-V that badly, they could probably just retarget that.

The emulator to do so is written and maintained by Intel, not Google.