Author: Clinton

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.

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.

Google has announced that physical USB security key support is coming to all version of G Suite over the next few weeks.  Support of security keys, to this point, has been limited to Enterprise level customers.  That is changing as all variants of the service will be gaining support.

Security Keys are a physical USB key that you plug into a device that gives you access to it.  It is perhaps the ultimate in 2-Factor authentication.  Yubico is perhaps the most well known of these types of keys and they are readily available at low cost.

Chrome 65 rolled out to Chrome OS last week and with it came a lot of improvements and changes.  One thing that was added that was not documented was inline replies in Android messaging apps.

If you are using the Android app version of a messaging app like Hangouts or Facebook Messenger, you can now reply to that message from the notification that you get when you receive the message.

A busy day on the Chrome OS front.  The Chrome OS Dev Channel was updated to a sixth Chrome 66 build and now the Chrome OS Stable Channel has seen its second Chrome 65 build.  The new build is 65.0.3325.184 (Platform version: 10323.62.0/1) for those keeping score at home.  Perhaps more important to everyone is that this build is coming to Chromebooks that can run Android apps.

Having checked for this update this morning on my Pixelbook, which you can do by typing chrome://help in the browser bar, the update is already out there and has been applied.