It’s been a few months since we covered up our ambition to bring tight integration with Google’s two major hardware products. Named Phone Center, this feature aims to improve the relationship between your Android smartphone and Chromebook. Shortly after a visual prototype went to the Canary and Dev channels via a chrome flag, it mysteriously disappeared from the computer tray — until recently — never returned. Although we still do not have a working version of it, PhoneHub has received numerous visual and backend updates, giving us an overview of what Google is cooking to bring your phone and Chromebook closer.
As we recently saw on the Chrome OS Canary Channel, Google Phone Center has undergone a refreshing UI overhaul that looks completely different than it did when it did the 9to5 Google’s Kyle Bradshaw demo in September. Redesign comes with a clean phone center UI, concept notification system and a whole new boarding experience for setting up your phone with Chrome OS. Take a look here at what has changed.
Initial setup
First posts everything. No matter how beautiful the phone center is, it doesn’t matter if the login experience catches your attention and doesn’t show its value. To help you get the ball rolling, the phone center setup UI offers an impressive experience by introducing its advantages, and how you can make the most of it.
The telephone center’s boarding UI introduces its benefits with transparent charts.
Google is no stranger to incorporating a simple interface into its products, and the phone center is no exception. The onboard UI is shown in the right corner of the shelf and acts as a guide to guide you through connecting your phone to Chrome OS. It is easy to use, and beautiful illustrations help to get involved throughout the process. Despite the pictures, it is worth noting that the prototype is currently not connected to your phone.
Phone Center UI
Once the onboarding system is complete, the phone center will show you a minimal interface about the status of your phone and some notifications to control it.
Updated Phone Center UI.
The phone hub palette looks significantly different from what it last appeared on in September. This will display information including your phone name, battery life and signal strength. Below, three modifications are used to locate your phone, activate your hotspot, or put your phone in non-annoying mode. No changes are currently in effect, but it does show some of the things you can do while the phone center is running.
Announcement reflection
Phone Center also gives you the option to mirror your phone’s notifications on your Chromebook. After clicking the “Set” button in the shelf widget, a new setup stream will appear.
Set to receive phone notifications on your Chromebook.
Like the initial layout, the flow uses the smoothness of Google-Y charts. Clicking the “Start” button triggers your Chromebook to start connecting to your phone, but like most features of the prototype, it does nothing yet. However, Google hid a functional resource-feedback system that would allow developers to debug messages sent to the phone center. A quick look here:
Notice test.
An obscure pseudo-message pops up on the shelf with text on the tray. Aside from the fact that it can be swiped, the notification allows you to send in-line replies, or at least when it is working properly.
See the latest Chrome tabs
The phone center lets you view the latest Chrome tabs from your phone so you can quickly pick up where you left off. This confirmation in Chromium Gerrit provides additional information about what it does:
View the latest Chrome tabs from your phone
To clarify, “Continue work” is a term used to send Chrome tabs on different devices. When you visit a website using Chrome on your phone, the URL will appear in a few seconds under “Recent Chrome Tabs” in the phone center tray. 9to5Google is based on the idea of ”restart what you’re doing on an Android app on your phone and allow your Chromebook to be restarted”, but I do not think that’s the case with updated strings. Instead, I believe Google is referring to custom Chrome tabs created by clicking a link inside an app (e.g., clicking a link in the Google app).
While it’s a great thing that we can seamlessly switch from Android apps on the phone to the same place on the Chromebook, the easy return to your Chrome tabs from other devices is a welcome time saver for many.
Why phone center is important
Many of us are waiting Forever Google to improve cross-device synergy between Chromebooks and Android. Although the integration between the two platforms is slightly improved with Google’s “Better Together” features, it does a better job of comparing with Apple’s iPhone-Mac integration (even your phone’s use of Microsoft). This is one of the main reasons why Apple’s ecosystem is unavoidable for many consumers.
Google’s “Better Together” artwork.
Google’s phone center is the company’s response to the tight integration of Apple products. Controlling your phone, controlling glass notifications, and browsing the latest Chrome tabs from your Android device is the biggest improvement we have today. With a near-corner partition, it’s close to bringing Google’s operating system integration to the Apple and Microsoft tables.
I hope Google will eventually enable syncing clipboard data between your devices with your phone center, just as Microsoft does with your phone app. Find an image or text package on your phone and quickly copy and paste it into Google Docs on your Chromebook without having to change anything manually using the nearby partition. Similarly, copying text or pictures from your Chromebook to your phone is incredibly convenient if you travel frequently.
Phone Center is designed to be an awesome feature that will finally provide truly worthy integration with our Android and Chrome OS devices. If implemented efficiently, this will be significant in forcing Android phone users to switch to a Chromebook. I can’t wait to set it up with the phone center when my Android device starts working, it will be very soon.