Chrome OS 87 may be delayed and that’s totally fine

We are one day away from the official release date of Chrome OS 87 but a recent discovery by Android Police’s Kent Duke could signal the delay of the final update of 2020. While it isn’t unusual for Chrome OS to miss its release date by a few days, this particular update to version 87 was already set for a week later than normal with a two-week gap between it and the browser update that happened on November 17. If developers can’t resolve a critical bug in version 87 of Chrome OS, we may see the release held back even longer.

What’s the hold up?

It isn’t unusual for a bug to slip through the cracks here and there when a major update is rolled out. However, it is less common for a software glitch to create what is referred to as a “release block.” Essentially, this is a bug that prevents the rollout of a given version of the software. These blocks pop up and then are fixed before they make their way to the Stable channel to wreak havoc on users. Every so often, one of these release blocks appears right before an update is released and that prevents the timely launch of the software.

This particular bug resulted in an open bug report thanks to feedback submitted by Mr. Duke but looking at the Chromebook support forum, he isn’t alone as some users have reported the same issue. That issue is an extremely sluggish input response in Android applications. More specifically, typing in a text box in some applications becomes so delayed that they are practically unusable. For some users, such as myself, this is a non-issue as I rarely enable the Play Store on my Chromebook. That said, there are countless users that not only use Android apps on Chrome OS, they depend on these Play Store applications for work, school, or other various use cases. This bug could be a critical hit to the Chromebook ecosystem on a very grand scale.

There are currently four release-blocking bugs for Chrome OS 87 but this particular culprit is the only one that is set to “priority 0” which means that it is getting the highest level of attention from developers. In the comments of the bug report, one developer stated that a fix had been implemented but need to be approved before it could be pushed into the main branch. This was around 10 pm ET last night. If the fix is viable, we could still see this bug squashed in time for the debut of Chrome OS 87 tomorrow. That is the best-case scenario and fingers crossed that everything will roll out without a hitch. However, I would rather see the update delayed for a few days than have millions of Chromebook users suddenly stricken with a nasty bug and have no idea how or why it happened. You can keep track of the bug report here and hopefully, Chrome OS 87 will soon be ready for prime time.

Source: Android Police