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In a bit of an exploratory mood this morning, I ventured over to the experimental and unstable world of the Developer Channel on my Chromebook. I figure the version on display right now – ChromeOS 129 – is likely the version that we’ll see shipping on the devices we expect to land this fall. So, in an effort to catch a glimpse of some new stuff, I was pleasantly surprised to see a big change in the look of the overview mode right out of the box.
New look, new feel, new feature
Overall, the change doesn’t wildly overhaul the actual function of your overview in ChromeOS: but it does drastically change the look and feel for sure. Here’s a side-by-side of the current overview screen, and this new, updated one present in ChromeOS 129:
As you can tell, the basic stuff is all still there, but surrounding the entire overview mode is a border that slides in and encompasses the desks you have open up top and the new suggestions below. The center point is still your open windows all arranged so you can see them, but even that area now has a nice, rounded look to it as well.
The suggestions and recent files at the bottom haven’t proven useful thus far, but I could see a bit of AI being injected there to give Chromebook users a similar experience as Pixel users get with suggested apps. My guess is things aren’t fully baked just yet, so I’ll be keeping an eye on that.
More than anything, this new overview mode just looks unique and cool. The overall feel is far more on-brand with Material You styles and though there’s not a massive amount of functional changes here for now, I like where this is headed for sure. With some better suggestions down at the bottom and super-smooth animations, the overview mode in ChromeOS is set to look really awesome in just a handful of weeks from now.
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