ChromeOS

ChromeOS to gain ‘glanceable’ desktop widgets similar to Pixel’s At A Glance

Kyle Bradshaw | Aug 16 2022 - 2:46 pm PT

ChromeOS desktop shown on an Acer Chromebook

Google has begun working on a project to bring “glanceable” widgets to the ChromeOS desktop, which could act like a large-screen version of Pixel’s At A Glance widget.

One of the signature features of the Pixel series of phones is the inclusion of an “At A Glance” widget on the home screen. That space has grown significantly smarter in the last year, gaining options for grocery deliveries, commuter information, and air quality alerts.

Now it seems Google is preparing to bring at least some of these ambient smarts to Chromebooks. A new code change, posted this week, introduces the concept of “glanceables” for ChromeOS. Helpfully, there’s also an earlier “prototype” available that offers a more complete picture of what to expect.

Much like the Android home screen, ChromeOS will align widgets to a grid, with each “glanceable” acting like a tile on the grid. At this point, we only have two examples of what might appear in these desktop widgets: a clock and a weather tile. As you might expect, the weather tile will look a fair bit like the weather information shown in ChromeOS’s screensaver feature.

Unfortunately, since the feature’s design draft is private, there’s no sign of what broader intentions Google might have for “glanceables” on ChromeOS. The potentials could range from a full, Android-like widget system to an automatic arrangement of what you need to know, like a large screen version of Pixel’s At A Glance.

That aside, what’s most interesting to us is actually the placement of these “glanceable” widgets. On most desktop/laptop operating systems like Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu, you’re able to use the actual “desktop” as a place to stash things like files, program shortcuts, and more.

ChromeOS has always been the exception, with its “desktop” being effectively nonexistent, serving only to show your current wallpaper. From the code available today, it seems highly likely that the new “glanceables” will be the first major use of the ChromeOS desktop.

Since the code for these desktop widgets is only just now beginning to arrive in ChromeOS, it’s likely we won’t see it in action for a few more weeks/months. Of course, as it’s still a work in progress, it’s also entirely possible these widgets may never see the light of day.

What do you think of the possibility of ChromeOS gaining widgets? What sorts of information would you like it to show? Let us know down in the comments!