Chrome OS Build 61 – Beautiful and Secure
Chrome OS has come a long way in 6 years that it has been around. The platform has infinitely more features and functionality, has a robust ecosystem of extensions and now Android apps, and is no longer a “cheap” OS for “cheap” hardware. It has grown up, a lot.
But if there is one area that it still has lagged when comparing it to the likes of MacOS or Windows 10, it has been in the User Interface. Yes it has changed a bit, most notably with the introduction of a task bar in 2012, but fundamentally it has always been a browser-based platform with a clunky but functional UI. But that changed in a big way this week with the released of Chrome OS build 61.
Build 61 brings the most dramatic changes to the User Interface to date. It brings an all new app launcher, significantly improved support for Android apps and a much more polished lock screen. These many not sound like big ticket items but these changes bring the platform as a whole more into the mainstream look of an Operating System and out of the “geeks only” look that the platform has had to this point. It also points to the never ending work that the Chromium team within Google perform to not only keep it as a secure and reliable OS but also bringing features that users are expecting in a desktop or laptop platform. With more improvements on the horizon, this new look UI will only improve over the course of 2018.