ChromeOS 147 is a bit late: could we actually have some new features?

According to the official Chromium Dash schedule, the stable release of ChromeOS 147 was slated for yesterday, April 21st. As of this morning, we are still waiting for the green light.

In the world of ChromeOS updates, a 24-hour delay is usually just a blip and is often caused by a last-minute bug fix or a minor server hiccup. But given how lean the feature lists have been for the past several milestones, this delay had me wondering if there could there be a feature or two actually arriving in this update that could be causing the delay.

Over the last few updates, ChromeOS has felt like it’s in a state of refinement rather than revolution. We’ve seen a lot of “under-the-hood” stability fixes and minor UI polish, but very little in the way of the big, transformative features we saw during the last decade or so. With that sort of update cadence, we’ve seen new versions arrive right on time for the past handful of OS updates for sure. It’s fun to speculate that there could be at least a small, new addition to ChromeOS as we await more news on the ‘Aluminium OS ‘ era.

However, it’s important to manage expectations. Google likely has a very busy roadmap leading up to the summer and into fall. Most likely, ChromeOS 147 will arrive within the next 48 hours with a focus on security and stability. While I’m hopeful for a few new things to try out in ChromeOS, I’m also realistic about things and know that most of the development work is being focused on Project Aluminium right now. Still, there’s still room to hope, right?