Six more Chromebook apps to receive refreshed iconography

We reported in September on a slew of new icon designs coming to Chromebooks in the wake of a system-wide light and dark themes. The device Files app along with Settings, Keyboard Shortcuts, and the Wallpaper picker all received stylish, new graphics with subtle, muted colors. I personally think that they look pretty incredible and show that the operating system is ‘growing up’, so to speak, but I understand that not everyone is a fan of them.

While browsing my Pixelbook Go a few days ago, I realized that in Canary Mode, several new icons had received redesigns and had joined those aforementioned with the new, suit and tie look. The Terminal app, the Chromebook Recovery Utility, Diagnostics tool, and the Connectivity Diagnostics app are all officially rocking a dark grey icon background with blue and teal pastel accents. You can see below that they all look very nice, and it’s a welcome change to the very early 2000’s design that they previously utilized.

Additionally, while using my Lenovo Chromebook Duet this morning – this device is in Beta, mind you – a few more icons stuck out to me. The calculator and Text app icons had been updated with the same coloring scheme. What’s interesting though, is that the calculator has taken on a very, very teal coloring. Why is this though? Well, if you open the app itself, you’ll notice that the icon now accurately reflects much of the UI therein – again, lots and lots of green.

These two icons are likely to come to the masses in their new form before the Canary channel icons I mentioned before. The Beta channel lives right next door to the Stable channel which all devices utilize out of the box. I’m confident that the four Canary icons above won’t be far behind though.

While writing this, I noticed that the Calculator and Text app icons on my Pixelbook Go had not yet updated, and while staring at them in my launcher, they blipped into the new designs right before my very eyes – almost as though system apps receive pushed updates predictively. Here’s a look at all thirteen of the updated icons aside from Borealis and Parallels.

What do you think about this new direction Google is taking Chrome OS? We seem to be entering a new era of maturity. No longer is it solely about adding core functionality to these devices – though we’re still receiving essentials like Print Jobs, and the Scanning app, but instead, the company seems to be more focused on polishing the user experience, and that gets me pretty excited.