Category: Chrome OS

If you are running Chrome 67 on your Chromebook, there is now a flag available to you that will allow you to enable the still under construction new wallpaper picker.  The new picker replaces the old style picker which has been in the platform since, well, forever.  It brings a refreshed, Material Design look to the picker and eventually will marry up with the backdrop wallpaper changer that is found in Chromecast.

That’s where the under construction part comes into the equation.  Right now there is a commit in the Chrome OS Gerrit that points to a new wallpaper that is enabled by default and that it will marry up with Chromecast.  The idea is that your Chromecast and your Chromebook will have the same look and feel and will be drawing from the same service in the background to give you your wallpaper options.

A fifth Chrome 68 based build has arrived in the Chrome OS Dev Channel, the platforms alpha build channel.  Build 68.0.3440.25 (Platform version: 10718.22.0) is the new version and available for the majority of Chromebooks that are in the channel.

For those that are new to Chrome OS, the Chrome OS Dev Channel is considered the Alpha channel for the platform.  Normally this channel has a fair number of bugs or performance issues as it gets refined prior to be releasing into the Beta channel for broader testing.

Right now your choices for Chromebooks that support Linux are pretty limited.  The Google Pixelbook and the Samsung Chrome Plus have been the first devices to support it.  Today however, the team over at XDA has discovered that the new HP Chromebook X2 is now supported.

Linux support on the X2 is limited to the Chrome OS Canary Channel.  For those that aren’t familiar with Chrome OS’ channels, the Canary Channel is pre-alpha essentially with a lot of experimentation (and thus crashes) going on.  It is not for the faint of heart and indeed you have to bypass a lot of the platforms security mechanisms to get to it.  But if you really want to go there, you can and can try out Linux on the X2.

With Android app support already there and Linux support on its way, Chrome OS has a platform is evolving quickly.  That evolution means that how we view and use our Chromebook has to change too, particularly the Files app.  A new commit and a new flag in the Chrome OS Dev Channel gives us a solid clue as to where the file management app built into the platform is heading.

The commit points to there being a revamp of the Files app to allow for four distinct sections:  My Drive (Google Drive and Team Drive if you have a G Suite account), Linux files, Android Files, and File System Providers like Microsoft’s OneDrive or Dropbox.

A new Chrome OS commit in the Chromium Gerrit suggests that Android-like swipe actions could be making their way to the platform in the near future.  The commit calls for “scrolling and gesture fling events should follow the same curve used by android in order to have a smoother and more fluid experience” which should make system level gestures more accessible and more natural for Android users.  In will feel and function the same on a Chromebook as it does a phone is the general idea.

These new gestures would be enabled when the Chromebook is in tablet mode when they make their way to the platform.  They also appear to be system level changes so these gestures would work across Chrome OS, not just in the browser.  In theory at least.

A new Chrome OS commit suggests that integration with Android Messages could be on its way to the platform.  The wording of the commit suggests that it will be a feature flag, at least in the beginning, but there are no details on how to enable the flag or when it will appear in a Chrome OS build.

Integration with Android Messages would allow for users to have their SMS/MMS messages on their Android phone running Messages to be sync’d with their Chromebook, thus allowing you to respond from your Chromebook without having to actually pick up your phone.  In theory, it works on the same principle as what you can do with Hangouts Classic before SMS support was removed (but it still works for Project Fi users) between your phone and your Chromebook.