chrome os

It almost sounds ironic, or even maybe suspicious, but tech companies like Google and Apple are finally taking their influential roles seriously. They’ve started to implement tools that make you aware of your addiction to devices and the Internet and ways to change that lifestyle. But while adults may have a harder time readjusting their habits, kids are still easy to train. That’s why following its release on Android, Google is now launching its Family Link app on Chromebooks to give parents the same control on some laptops.

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Chrome OS should have been Google’s ticket back into the tablet and productivity world. Indeed, its Pixel Slate announcement was filled with rhetoric about how real computers have real desktop browsers. But while the Pixel Slate fared mostly fine in early reviews when it came to the hardware, there was were some lingering doubts about its overall utility. The uncertainty and doubt might not be over for the platform if its first Snapdragon-powered Chromebook, the one codenamed “cheza”, is as terrible as these first benchmark scores seem to imply.

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If the Pixelbook demonstrated Google could make a compelling laptop, the Google Pixel Slate is its attempt to do the same for tablets. Like the latest iPad Pro, it's a confident claim that what was once considered a pared-back, mobile OS can now wear Big Boy Pants and be everything you need to do "real work" on the go. In the process, though, Google finds itself bumping up against some of the same challenges that Apple did with its tablet, and the Pixel Slate doesn't always have the best answers either.

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Google seems to grooming Chrome OS to be the one OS that runs them all. Well, almost all since, at the moment, it can only run Chrome apps, Android apps via Google Play Store, and Linux apps via the Debian GNU/Linux distro. But while that arrangement might seem like the perfect setup, at least for users who prefer Linux over, say, Windows or macOS, reality isn’t all sunshine and roses. It might be, soon, if Linux programs will finally be able to access Android files and folders.

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It seems that Google can’t yet make up its mind when its Pixel Slate will actually start shipping, keeping excited would-be owners on the edge of their seats. Announced in early October, the 2-in-1 Chrome OS device was noted to ship before the year ends. Pre-orders then started early with some retailers showing mid-November dates. And then the Google Store dashed some hope with a December schedule. Now it seems, however, that the Pixel Slate will indeed start arriving in a few days, at least for those who paid extra to be a bit early.

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It seems that Google's Pixel Slate is very nearly here. Today, the Google Store was updated with expected shipping times for all varieties of the Pixel Slate. Though each model has a shipping time that's at least a few weeks out, they should all begin shipping to customers before the end of the year.

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There's a new web app for Chrome called Squoosh this week, made by Google to prove the next generation of web apps are viable. That might seem pretty boring to everyone that's already got their traditional apps already downloaded - but the future is coming. With this app, Developer Advocate Jake Archibald and Drawsplainer Mariko Kosaka show how Javascript in a web browser can make the impossible task of up-scaling a photo quite possible indeed.

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This afternoon Google released their 2018 Google Pixel Slate on their Google Store and at Best Buy online. This is the same tablet shown for the first time at the Google Pixel 3 event on October 9th, 2018. This device is a 2-in-1 that comes in a wide variety of configurations - especially for a Chromebook. Just in case this release wasn't confusing enough from the start: this device runs Chrome OS.

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The Pixel Slate is arguably one of the most exciting Chromebooks to land in the market. Or rather, that would be landing in the market. Although Google has basically revealed all at its Pixel event last month, the Chrome OS 2-in-1 remains out of reach of everyone. Unlike the Pixel 3 smartphones, Google’s replacement for Android tablets has yet to actually hit store shelves, both virtual and physical, with nothing but a “later this year” promise to hold on to. Fortunately, Google might not be waiting for the 11th hour to bring the Pixel Slate to the public, as it was just listed by the FCC, suggesting that we might just be a week or two away from actual launch.

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Android tablets are dead. The nail in the coffin was the Google Pixel Slate, not the first Chrome OS tablet but the most notable. With Chrome OS able to run Android apps and now sporting tablet-like form factors, there’s practically no reason to have Android tablets anymore, unless you’re talking about cheap Android tablets from less known brands. That may be fine, considering how Android is notoriously bad at tablet form factors. But despite that, Google’s mobile platform still needs to have tablet-friendly apps if they are to survive a Chrome OS future.

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Since time immemorial, OK maybe just a decade or so ago, people have imagined what a Google OS would be like. At one point, it seemed that would be something based on Ubuntu Linux which turned out to simply be a version they use internally. Then came Android, which almost because but still isn’t that Google OS. These days, the running theory is Fuchsia OS but you don’t have to go that far into the future. That Google OS might already be already be here in the form of Chrome OS but it’s still missing one important thing to truly establish it as more than just a passing but expensive experiment for Google.

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If there was still any doubt that Chrome OS is headed towards a multi-form future, release 70 of Google’s operating system should probably banish that. This version brings a couple of features that not only improves compatibility with Android apps but also adds features for more touch-friendly tablet use, like floating keyboard. While some Chromebooks do have touch screens, such features make more sense when used on touch-centric Chrome OS devices without any keyboard attached.

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