One of the features that has been added to Chrome OS over the years is a bit of phone + Chromebook interaction. As it is now, if you have an Android phone connected to the same Google account as your Chromebook, you will enjoy some additional advantages such as instant connection when there is no Wi-Fi, quite smooth SMS / RCS messaging integration and a feature unlock phone that unlocks your Chromebook when your phone is unlocked. They are useful plugins for the overall experience, of course, but There is much more that Google could be doing to unite your phone + Chromebook experience.
Take what they are doing in Windows 10 as an example. Sure, you need to install an app to work with its “Your Phone” functionality between Android and Windows, but along with that installation you will get the functionality of text messaging, photo management and media control on your phone. On certain Samsung devices, there’s even a copy / paste function that works between its different screens along with the ability to preview the phone’s screen on your laptop.
It seems that somehow Google and Microsoft have made a service that is better than what Google’s operating system is currently capable of. Okay, on a Chromebook there is nothing to add or install – just log in and the functionality that exists is already there. Still, having a little more control over my phone while looking at my Chrome OS screen during the day would be a good skill to have, and It seems to be on the way.
Phone Hub comes to Chromebooks
Based on some code changes discovered by Google 9to5, it seems like Google’s new feature will be called Phone Hub and it seeks to further integrate its Android and Chrome OS experience by providing more granular control to your phone directly from your Chromebook. A new feature mark has been added for these new abilities and should appear on the Canary Channel at any time.
Enable Phone Hub
Provides a user interface for users to view information about their Android phone and perform phone-side actions within Chrome OS
# enable-phone-hub
Since current phone + Chromebook connections are more like benefits, this new feature seeks to completely enhance the full experience and bring a little of what Windows 10 already does through the “Your Phone” app natively to Chromebooks. While we can’t know the details of what the flag is referring to when it mentions display information or taking actions on the phone from Chrome OS, it can shed a little light on all the effort in the form of the other 9to5 commit found in reference to the Phone Hub function. In that confirmation, there is a reference to where the settings for Phone Hub will live (just below the instant tether, smart lock, and Message on the Connected Devices settings page), and Some advice on what those additional settings will contain:
Phone hub notifications
Phone Hub Notifications Badge
Phone Hub Task Continuation
Looking at these settings, it’s pretty clear that Phone hub notifications It will probably be a better and more consistent way to handle notifications across devices. At this point, we can receive multiple alerts for the same WhatsApp message, for example, and there is the possibility that this notification center prevents this from happening in services that support more unified notification in different systems.
The second adjustment – Phone Hub Notifications Badge – Chrome OS is likely to manage the display of your phone’s notifications versus those triggered by Chromebook. It’s still unclear what exactly it will look like or how it will be implemented, but users need to know the difference between a system-level notification and one coming from the connected phone.
The end Phone Hub Task Continuation The configuration is probably the most attractive. Again, at this stage there is no way of knowing exactly what tasks we can expect to continue, but it is easy to dream a little. I imagine it will start with simple things like Chrome tab transfers, but it could easily turn into something much more interesting. Imagine that compatible apps have the ability to seamlessly transfer what you were doing on your phone to the same app or service on the larger screen Chromebook?
With cloud computing at the center of what we expect from Chromebooks, This reality is already somewhat established. If I’m replying to an email in Gmail, editing a document in Drive, or making a note in Keep, I can already open my Chromebook and continue those tasks because my work is constantly saved in the cloud. It is amazing and I love it. I envisioned the continuation of the task that this new Phone Hub will offer to fill in the gaps in some apps and services that may be much less connected and that could be some very welcome additions to the Chromebook experience.
This could be quite a big change for the way Chromebooks and Android phones work together and we are going to be very attentive to the development of this new feature. Between this and Nearby Share, the interaction between Android and Chrome OS will become quite sweet in the coming months. For Google, this is a necessary move to start tapping into all new Chrome OS users who want a reason to stick with Android. For those of us who have been here for a while, cleaner integrations between the hardware we already know and love are also welcome.
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