For years, Chrome OS was looked at as a simple, lightweight OS
that only let you access the internet via Google’s Chrome browser. Naturally,
it helped that Google began offering services like Google Docs, Google Sheets,
etc. so that people could actually begin using it as a modern workstation.
People still looked at it as an OS for simply browsing the web, but Google
began evolving it to something more powerful. They added support for features
such as Android apps, Linux apps, and tighter integration with Android devices.
A popular feature that many have been requesting is support for multiple Google
accounts, and while that widely went ignored these last years, it looks as if
the feature is finally coming to the platform.
It was late last year when Chrome Story published a few screenshots that showed
Chrome OS could be getting an account manager feature. This was discovered in
the Canary build of the operating system and it seemed to work similarly to how
Android has had the feature implemented. They were actually able to add a new
Google account to this bleeding edge build of Chrome OS, but they couldn’t get
it to work within the various apps that are available in Chrome OS.
That seems to be changing now though as the same publication has
now been able to add a second Google account to their Pixelbook and it actually
works as you would expect. Meaning, once the secondary account is set up you
can then open up the Gmail app (for example, and when the app is launched for
the first time it asks you to choose from the default account or the new
account that was recently added. The same thing happens with Android apps as
well, such as the Google Play Books application.
Again, this feature is available via the latest update to the
Canary branch of the operating system and it can be found under Settings
> People > Google Accounts. It’s unclear if this will be exclusive to
Google’s Chrome OS devices (Pixelbook, Pixel Slate, etc.) but that seems highly
unlikely at this point.
Tags:
Google