Chrome OS is undergoing a major overhaul on its 10th anniversary

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Chrome OS, Google is today announcing a redesign and a new set of tools to make the platform much more useful. It is important to note that he is adding a new clipboard that resembles the last five things you copied, a phone hub to make access to your Android device easier and support for sharing nearby.

Phone Hub is a small panel that allows you to access your phone’s controls and see the status of things like battery life and data connectivity. Not only can you use your Chromebook to connect to your Android device when you’ve lost it, but you can also activate tethering with one click, as well as view recent Chrome tabs on your phone. You will continue to be able to send and receive texts from your laptop (which you could have done before with the Messaging app).

Two new features make life a little easier for those with Android and Chrome OS devices. First, WiFi sync will allow you to automatically connect to trusted networks you’ve used on your phone or other Chromebooks, without having to re-enter passwords. And in the coming months, Nearby Share is coming to allow file sharing between your Chromebook and other Chrome OS or Android devices without an internet connection (via Bluetooth or local WiFi).

Google is also improving the screen capture tool in Chrome OS, making it easier to access from the Quick Settings panel. Now you can outline exactly what you want to copy on your screen and create screen recording videos, which will be saved to your clipboard. Speaking of which, the clipboard can now store up to five things you have copied, and you can access them from the new Tote feature. This is a waiting area for all files that you and Google think you will need, in addition to screenshots. You can pin files to Totes for easy access, which should be useful for things you send frequently, like checklists or reference sheets.

As part of the redesign, Google is integrating media controls directly into the Quick Settings panel for easy access and updating icons for integrated applications. Sharing files, images and links between applications and your browser is becoming a little easier – now, when you click Share on compatible sites, you’ll see a list of applications to which you can send your content directly. When you want to translate, define or convert something on your screen, clicking the right mouse button will open Quick Answers in one panel so you don’t have to open another tab.

The company is also updating the Desks feature, adding support for up to eight virtual workspaces and bringing a new Overview mode to make switching between them easier. Now, when your laptop is restarted, your windows on multiple desks will be restored so you can quickly get back to setting up your workflow.

Select to speak, the Chrome OS screen reader, is receiving enhanced controls, including options to pause, speed up and slow down playback. Google is also making it easier to jump to different sections of the text.

Since many parents are buying Chromebooks for their children to make homework easier, Google is also simplifying the setup of Family Link, which allows students to use school accounts on their own devices. In this way, parental control can still be applied as long as children have access to school applications.

Since Chromebooks are the most popular laptops in schools, it’s good to see some useful updates coming to the platform. For those of us on Windows (or even those on macOS), some of these features will look more like Google bringing your desktop software closer than we are familiar with. Chrome OS may not yet be the productivity ecosystem for people who need powerful apps to work, but with these updates, it looks like it’s starting to recover.