ClintonFitch.com

For the fourth time in as many weeks, there is a new build of the Chrome for Android beta app available in the Play Store.  The new build number is 66.0.3359.82 for those keeping score at home and if you have the beta app installed, you likely already have the update waiting for you.

As a reminder, with the Chrome Beta app is a seperate app in the Play Store which you can download without having to join a formal beta program.  You can use it along side your stable version of Chrome on your phone with no problem.

A new update to Microsoft Launcher is rolling out in the Google Play Store today, bringing several bug fixes and stability improvements to the app, as well as a few new features.  The new build is version 4.7.5 for those keeping score at home and if you have the launcher installed, you should get the OTA update to this new build over the next few days.

Microsoft characterized this new build as a maintenance build and it pretty much is just that.  There are several fixes included in this build including fixing top crashes and apps not responding errors in the launcher as well as fixing several badge count issues if you have that feature enabled in the launcher.  You will also find a lot of tweaks under-the-hood that bring performance, memory and CPU utilization improvements to Microsoft Launcher.

The current flagship Chromebook, the Google Pixelbook, is back on sale at various retailers currently.  Right now you can pick up the entry level model for $899 at Amazon while the package with the Pixelbook and the Pixelbook Pen is down to $990.  That package price is less than the Pixelbook itself normally.

The price is for the Intel i5 powered unit with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.  It is certainly powerful enough to do anything you would need, be it in Chrome OS or Android apps running on the device.

Back in January, I posted about a new commit in the Chrome OS Gerrit that pointed to the ability for Android apps to be able to access a USB drive attached to your Chromebook.  At the time, it was only a commit and had not shown up in any channel for the platform but that now has changed.

The team over at Chrome Story had discovered a new flag that enables this feature in the Chrome OS Canary Channel.  The Canary Channel right now is based on what will be Chrome 68 so we are still several months away from it landing in the Stable Channel – but it appears to be coming.