chrome os

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

If you've been waiting for Android Messages to come to Chrome OS, then good news: your wait may soon be over. Through Android Messages integration with Chrome OS has been a planned feature for quite some time now, we haven't seen much movement on that particular front. Instead, Google has put much of its recent focus on getting Android Messages' web integration up and running.

Continue Reading

Barely two weeks ago, right around Google’s event, ASUS silently announced the Chromebook C423. Now it has done it again, not really announcing the Chromebook C523. The similarity in the name isn’t accidental. The two are, in many ways, identical. Both come in a traditional laptop form factor at a time when Chrome OS tablets seem to be the new trend. The difference is that the Chromebook C523 is larger than the C423. Not by much but enough to be ASUS’ first ever 15-inch Chromebook.

Continue Reading

The brand name Android might not be around in a few years time. Google's latest in a long line of cuts to the brand happened right before our eyes, this week at the company's Pixel event. While the company launched several products that ran with or on Android, the word Android wasn't used one single time. Not in the official on-stage presentation, anyway.

Continue Reading

Earlier this week, Google introduced the world to the Pixel Slate, a new tablet that seems poised to take on Apple's iPad and Microsoft's Surface. The tablet seems like a pretty capable (albeit expensive) device depending on the configuration you choose, but one thing notably missing is LTE capability. Today, Samsung introduced the Chromebook Plus V2 (LTE), and it fills that particular gap with integrated LTE.

Continue Reading