Earlier today I posted that the Chrome OS Beta Channel had moved up to Chrome 66. In that post, I stated that the Chrome OS Dev Channel, the alpha testing channel for the platform, would likely move up to Chrome 67 at some point this week. Well, actually, it took about an hour.
Build 67.0.3376.0 (Platform version: 10510.0.0) is now rolling out to devices that are in the Dev channel, coming out of the Canary channel where it has been the last few weeks.
After a surprising fifth Chrome 65 build last week, the Chrome OS Beta Channel has finally ticked over to Chrome 66. The new build for the channel is 66.0.3359.48 (Platform version: 10452.23.0), which is the same build that is currently in the Chrome OS Dev Channel (the Alpha testing channel). That means that the Dev channel will likely move up to Chrome 67 at some point this week, if not later today.
It should be noted that devices that have Android app support will see the update land on them in a few days. The Chromium team is slow rolling the update out to those devices. I can confirm that my Acer Chromebook 15, which I keep in the Chrome OS Beta Channel, has not received the update.
After a leaked image a few months ago, the Chrome OS world has been ripe with anticipation for a Chrome based tablet form factor. Now, at least in the education sector, we have an answer. The Acer Chromebook Tab 10 is a 9.7″ tablet that runs Chrome OS and supports Android apps.
The $320 Chromebook Tab 10 has 32GB of storage, which can be expanded thanks to the MicroSD slot. It has 4GB of RAM and is powered by Rockchip (but Google trademark owned) OP1 SoC. It will be available in April for purchase.
When the Google Pixel 2 lineup was released, a series of “Come & Play” wallpapers were made available to the those devices exclusively. Consisting of 5 wallpapers in all, they are colorful, playful wallpapers that bring a mix of organic shapes and Material Design.
Now, you can download all of the wallpapers for your particular phone. I’ve added the five wallpapers to the Wallpapers page here on the site as well as to this post. As usual, I’ve added them after the break so for those of you who aren’t interested, you don’t have to wait for them to download on the main page.
A new commit in the Chrome OS Gerrit suggests that Android P framework testing is already underway for the platform. This could allow for P support to roll out at the same time or very close the release of the update for phones later this year.
As readers may know, Android apps in Chrome OS run in Android Framework, which was updated to Nougat last December in Chrome 61 but, interestingly, the Oreo framework never rolled out. The reason for the skip isn’t clear but it could have simply been focus shifting to get as many Chromebook builds updated to run Android in general. The number of Chromebooks supporting Android apps has significantly increased over the course of the last year, in particular the last four months.
The framework is what allows Android apps to run in Chrome OS and for developers, gives them a standard API level across Android devices and Chromebooks so their apps will run on both and with the same feature sets.