ClintonFitch.com

After weeks of rumors and speculation, Google announced this morning at I/O that the Google Play Store, and subsequently millions of Android apps, are coming to Chrome OS.  The announcement means that later this year, all Chrome OS users will be able to download, install and use their favorite Android apps on their Chromebooks without compromising performance or security.  This, folks, is a big deal.  It means that the OS will have honest-to-goodness apps, not web apps, which means you can get the same user experience on your Chromebook as you do your tablet or phone.

A new update to Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides is hitting the Google Play Store that brings a more effortless way to get to your files while you are offline.  In the update, recent files you have been working on are automatically downloaded to your device so you will have them when you are offline.  Right now, if you want to work on a file while you are offline, you have to flag that file to download to your device.  If you forget, you are out of luck until you get back online.  This new feature removes this manual step.

As part of the 3rd Developer Preview of Android N, four new wallpapers made their way into release.  The better news is you can download them all here on the site.  The new wallpapers continue the trend of having natural scenes for wallpapers and all four of them are beautiful.  Three of the four are beach/surf scenes while the fourth is a close up texture image.  They look great on phones and tablets and are all 2880 x 2560 resolutions for your large screen devices.

To save everyone who isn’t interested from having to have the page render, I’ve added the images after the break.  You can tap on each one then right-click to save it or you can visit the wallpaper page and check out the hundreds of wallpapers I have over there.

What is interesting to this point is that there have been no Material Design wallpapers in any of the Previews so far.  All five of the wallpapers in N have been nature scenes so it will be interesting to watch if a new Material wallpaper or set of them comes when the final build of N is released later this year.

Enjoy these new wallpapers on all of your devices and given their size, you may even find them pretty nice to view on your PC, Mac or Chromebook too.

As expected, Google announced yesterday at I/O that the 3rd Developer Preview of Android N is now available for those registered in the beta program.  What is more interesting is that the company was quite clear that they believe this build is stable enough for general consumption on your every day devices.  It is a significant difference from the language used in the first two previews which was very clear in their “developer only” messaging.  While I would still caution those who don’t want to put up with odd behaviors or diminished battery life from download it, if you have an eligible device, you can get it through the Android Beta program site.