ClintonFitch.com

With Chrome 66 landing on all of the browser variants of Chrome this week, both desktop and mobile, the last update is with Chrome OS.  That is expected to happen next week on April 25th.  In the meantime, a fifth and likely final beta of Chrome 66 has arrived in the Chrome OS Beta Channel for those who have their devices in that channel.  The new build is 66.0.3359.117 (Platform version: 10452.69.0).

For those who have a machine in the Beta Channel, you should check for the update by typing chrome://help in the browser bar and clicking the Check for Update button.

After three beta builds over the past few weeks, the Chrome team has released the Chrome 66 update to Chrome for Android.  The new app is build 66.0.3359.106 and it will be landing on devices over the course of the next few weeks.  There are several changes in this update including most noticeably, a new modern UI look to the browser.

This new look rolled out via a flag change in one of the first betas of Chrome 66 and it is still a flag that you can enable.  That flag is chrome://flags/#enable-chrome-modern-design.  It gives everything a more rounded and polished look over the current, default UI.  Also, like the desktop updates and Chrome for iOS, you can now export your passwords in the mobile browser to save as a .CSV file.  Keep in mind though that the file is not encrypted so if anyone gets hold of it, they have your passwords.  Protect it!

Apple Pay, the tap-to-pay service for retail and app purchases, has expanded the number of partner financial institutions here in the United States as well as  five other countries.  The expansion comes just a few weeks after Brazil iOS users were added to the countries that support the service.

The expansion adds banks here in the United States as well as Canada, China, Italy, Russia, and Spain.  While the list of countries and banks supported by Apple Pay is substantially smaller than its main rival Google Pay, the expansion shows that Apple plans to continue to work with financial institutions and, in some cases, governments, for the service to work in other countries and with more banks.

Following up on the release of the second beta of iOS 11.4, Apple has released the second beta of the next build of MacOS High Sierra, MacOS 10.13.5.  The update is available to testers who have registered their devices in the Apple beta program.  If you have a registered device, the update should be available to you through the Mac App Store.

Not much is known about what is included in this second beta as Apple tends to not release many details on it.  Given it is a “dot” release, it more-or-less focuses on bug fixes and performance improvements as well as refinements to apps on the platform.  One thing that is known is that MacOS 10.13.5 will bring Message on iCloud which is now also in the afore mentioned second beta of iOS 11.4.