The Chrome Cast

For this episode of The Chrome Cast, we dive into all the announcements from Google’s 10/4 hardware event. From a keynote that announced everything from the Pixel 8 Pro to the Pixel Watch 2 and generative AI everywhere, there’s clearly a lot to talk about.

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This week on The Chrome Cast, we are clearly talking about the biggest news to hit our corner of the internet in a very long time – perhaps ever. Google has unveiled Chromebook Plus, and it marks a very specific move towards a more cohesive, more-enjoyable Chromebook experience for consumers across the board. With a new standard for hardware and improved software experiences, Chromebook Plus is a change the ecosystem needs.

For this episode, we focused more on the event itself that happened in NYC last week and as we ran quite a bit long on that portion, we’ll return for more specifics on the hardware and software side of Chromebook Plus in our next episode. It’s an exciting time, for certain, and there is a monsoon of new Chromebook Plus content on the way.

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This week on The Chrome Cast, we begin the show by discussing the fresh, new roll-out of ChromeOS 117 to a handful of devices. This update comes with some sweet, new features like Material You design throughout and a new ability to select wallpapers from shared Google Photos albums. It’s a nice upgrade, for sure, but the devices it has already arrived on share something in common.

Not long ago, we talked about Chromebook Plus and what this new effort from Google could mean for the Chromebook ecosystem as a whole. As it turns out, all the devices getting this latest ChromeOS 117 update all fall into the category of devices that have been identified as likely Chromebook Plus devices that are already available. And in that vein, the Chromebook I got the update on – the Lenovo Chromebook Slim 3i – feels like it delivers on what we’re hoping will be the promise of Chromebook Plus: solid specs paired with a stellar overall user experience.

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This week on The Chrome Cast, we obviously talk at length about the biggest news of the week in the Chromebook and ChromeOS sphere: Google extending the AUE on Chromebooks by 2 full years. With this move, we now get two extra years of support on all current Chromebooks and a full 10 years of support on new devices as well. It’s a big move that comes with a lot of work on Google’s end, but it’s a big moment in the ChromeOS ecosystem for certain.

We round out the show by talking through the fantastic start for NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV and take a few moments to discuss the new Chromebooks that have shown up that could become part of the ‘Chromebook Plus’ ecosystem not too long from now.

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This week, we begin the conversation around Google’s upcoming hardware event slated for October 4th. We’re just a few weeks away, and now that Google has made all the new stuff we already expected official, we can begin looking forward to the event and seeing how the new Pixel phones and the new Pixel Watch 2 fit into Google’s larger vision for what they’d like to do on mobile for the next year.

For the second half, we begin by talking about a recent experiment where we tested out the decoupled Lacros Chrome browser on a Windows laptop running ChromeOS Flex, but we quickly diverge into a longer chat about the need for Google to address the rising e-waste problem coming from education-focused Chromebooks. While ChromeOS Flex would seem to offer the clearest path forward there, it doesn’t look to be on Google’s roadmap, and I’m beyond confused as to why that is.

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This week on The Chrome Cast, we begin by discussing the leaks of upcoming Chromebook Plus (formerly known as Chromebook X) models that appeared for a short time in the Chromium Repositories. With a handful of existing devices making the cut and at least 4 brand-new Chromebooks on the way for the Chromebook Plus program, we’re interested to see when Google rolls this out and what sort of early impact it will have when they do.

From there, we derail a bit into generative AI as we get around to our second, main topic for the week: Google’s October 4th hardware event becoming official. With the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel Watch 2 all looking to make an appearance, we’re left wondering if Google could have anything else up their sleeves.

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This week on The Chrome Cast, we begin the show by discussing the recent announcement by Google and Cameyo that the two will be partnering up moving forward to deliver a seamless virtual app delivery service to ChromeOS enterprise customers. Cameyo is a fantastic service that has been great for years at this point, so Google rolling this type of legacy (Windows) app delivery into ChromeOS at a core level is a huge benefit for both businesses and employees alike.

We then move into the trendiest news of the week surrounding Lacros – the new, decoupled browser for Chromebooks. Via some trials with it in ChromeOS 115 and then an updated approach in ChromeOS 116, things are looking very good for this years-long effort from Google to detach the Chrome browser from its intricate ties to the underlying parts of ChromeOS.

We finish the show by discussing the latest efforts by Google to bring Ultra Wideband to Chromebooks and what that sort of tech could mean for end users over the next couple of years while also covering some early thoughts on the upcoming review for the iterative Acer Chromebook Spin 714.

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This week on The Chrome Cast, we attempt to begin the show by talking through the two groups of Chromebooks in development that recently got the axe – those powered by the Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 and a couple Chromebooks that were set to have NVIDIA GPUs inside. We divert into some discussion about video editing and my son’s new YouTube channel, but we eventually get to the meat of what could be going on with these development Chromebook cancellations.

But the show ends on a high note as we counteract all the talk of cancellations with news of new devices waiting in the wings. From 12th-gen Intel Alder Lake-N Chromebooks to some new tablets with the MediaTek MT8188 inside, there are plenty of new devices to be looking forward to in the coming months that are exciting enough to perhaps forget about what could have been with the Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 devices and NVIDIA GPU-toting Chromebooks that will never see the light of day.

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This week on The Chrome Cast, we begin the show by discussing the new revelation that the small fleet of upcoming Chromebooks with the Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 will no longer continue in development. Why the ‘Herobrine’ project was scrapped and whether or not Qualcomm has another path forward with Chromebooks in the near future is currently unknown; but the reality that no new Snapdragon Chromebooks are on the horizon is a reality we simply have to accept for now.

We continue the show by discussing the impending arrival of Lacros that will begin the transition of Chrome the browser being separated from Chrome the OS. It’s a long, difficult process that Google says could take upwards of a year to finish, but it looks likely that ChromeOS 116 will lay the foundations for the beginning of the transition. And as a lead up to that big change, we also talk through the features that were included in the last ChromeOS 115 update.

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This week on The Chrome Cast, we discuss our collective, weeks-long experience with Google's Pixel Fold. From the things that make it unique and seriously great to those that create a good deal of user frustration, we cover what it was like to use the Pixel Fold and why - in the end - I ended up taking my SIM card back over to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. But there are more foldables on the way, and with some tweaks and fixes, this form factor could end up being truly special in the end.

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