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Google Messages has been a part of the overall Chromebook experience for quite some time now. If you’ve not set it up, I’d urge you to give it a try. The process is simple, the usability is very good, and it is nice to be able to fully leverage your text (SMS, MMS, Chat) messages right on the desktop. Now that it is baked into the Phone Hub on Chromebooks, its even easier to see, find and get set up for just about any Android phone user with a Chromebook.
There’s been a change, however, and some of the setup pieces aren’t called what they used to be. Where we used to see “Messages for Web” in the settings menu of the Google Messages app on Android, we have new language that simply says “Device Pairing”. Small and subtle? Sure, but this change is actually pervasive throughout the experience, now. On your Chromebook, when you go to the Phone Hub settings and click through to set up Google Messages, the pop-up window uses the same “Device Pairing” language as well. When you want to remove your pairing, the language is the same as well, replacing the old “log out” with “unpair” instead.
The process itself it all the same, but if you don’t know this little change is in play, it could make for a bit of a confusing setup/pairing process. If you – like me – are used to looking for the older prompts, you won’t find them anywhere and that can feel a bit unnerving. I honestly thought the Messages for Web part of my Google Messages app was missing at first. Turns out they’ve just changed all the messaging around it and, honestly, I like it. Ultimately, the Phone Hub should all feel more like a pairing process rather than a smattering of random integrations. Sometimes, a little language change is all it takes.
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