Chrome OS 80 is reportedly finally beginning its rollout, delivering a couple of fixes, app sideloading, and a bump to the Linux container. That’s setting aside the beginnings of a new Android-like tab strip for better tab management in Chrome. Aside from other changes cutting across all desktop platforms in Chrome 80, Chromebooks are getting a few significant changes here.
The big news here for most end-users is going to be a relatively small fix for Chrome OS tablets, detachable gadgets, and 2-in-1 devices. Summarily, the company has now fixed an autorotation bug that plagued the Chromebooks when used in tablet mode. Applying directly to mouse pairing, users can now accomplish that task without the screen’s autorotation being automatically disabled upon pairing.
Beyond that, for users installing Linux apps, Chrome OS’s project Crostini has been bumped up from Debian 9 ‘Stretch’. Now it’s based on Debian 10 ‘Buster’. That’s not an automatic update to the Linux containers just yet, with Chrome OS 80 on the wide scale. But it is coming.
For the change that will be noticed in Chrome OS 80 on the Stable Channel, Google is now allowing Android apps to be sideloaded.
In Chrome OS 80, you no longer have to enable Developer Mode on your Chromebook in order to sideload an Android app. The process still requires users to utilize ADB commands to get done because it’s intended for use by developers.
Android apps are expected to be more sandboxed in the future, alongside Google updating Android on Chromebooks to Android 11. That should make the OS itself more secure, enabling Google to turn on sideloading across the board without the extra work.
Chrome Android-like tab strip stepped closer with this update
Android-like tab strips recently spotted in testing are closer to implementation in the consumer-ready channels too with Chrome OS 80. That feature is now tucked behind experimental flags at the “chrome://flags” settings page in the Stable Channel.
In short, users that turn on three flags at that URL will now be able to put their device in tablet mode and get a dramatically revamped tab switching UI. That interface works closely to Android in the Chrome Browser. The long strip of tabs is effectively replaced by a numbered tab icon. Tapping that reveals a row of thumbnails for the open pages and an oversized “plus” icon for adding new tabs.
The tabs in that UI are scrollable, eliminating problems associated with tiny tabs once a large number of sites are open in a given Chrome window.
To turn that on, users need to navigate to the above-mentioned flags page via the Chrome URL Omnibox. The flags that need to be set to “Enabled” are easy to find with the page’s search tool. “#webui-tab-strip” needs to be set first. That’s followed by “#new-tabstrip-animation” and “#scrollable-tabstrip.”
There’s no guarantee those tabs will stay the same up to the eventual launch of the feature. So those flags may change in the future. Googlers haven’t given a clear indication as to when it will arrive without experimental flags either. But its appearance behind Stable Channel flags is promising and the new tab strip could arrive fairly quickly, pending the discovery of any bugs.
Will the late Chrome OS release impact Chrome OS 81?
Chrome OS 80 was initially intended to arrive back in mid-February. So this update is arriving at least a couple of weeks late. That’s not surprising since it has happened in the past with Google’s desktop OS. But it may not bode well for Chrome OS 81.
Historically, when Google has fallen behind on Chrome OS updates, it has taken one or two subsequent updates to get back on track with its self-appointed schedule.
Chrome OS 81 could feasibly arrive a bit later because of the slip. That firmware update is already expected to bring a couple of fairly big user-facing changes. Included in that is support for web-based AR and VR experiences. The Files app UI is predicted to bump forward to more closely align with Material Design 2.0 as well.
Chrome OS 81 is slated to arrive on March 24, giving Google just shy of three weeks to get its affairs in order on that front.