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    Home - News - Here’s what Phone Hub for Chromebooks looks like in Chrome OS 87
    News

    Here’s what Phone Hub for Chromebooks looks like in Chrome OS 87

    Kevin TofelBy Kevin TofelSeptember 11, 20202 Comments2 Mins Read
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    Two weeks ago, I was wondering if the anticipated Phone Hub for Chromebooks would be anything like Microsoft’s Your Phone app. That software lets you access data and apps on your Android phone from a Windows machine. I’m looking for similar functionality between an Android phone and a Chromebook. So far, it doesn’t look like Phone Hub will do that, however, you can get an early glimpse of what it will offer from this Chrome Story video showing it in the Chrome OS Canary channel:

    As you can see in the video, none of the actual icons work yet. But you can see where this is headed: At a minimum, Phone Hub will let you control some features of a connected Android phone.

    Those currently range from enabling the phone’s hotspot feature, silencing the phone, or locating it, either by ringing the phone or through the current Find My Device service. I can’t see why Google would want to reinvent a backend phone location service.

    Is that all the Phone Hub will do, though?

    Obviously, at this early stage, nobody outside of Google can say. If the Phone Hub is limited to such remote control features though, I’ll personally be disappointed because there’s so much more potential here. Accessing locally stored data on a phone that isn’t up in the cloud from a Chromebook would be useful, for example. Interacting with Android apps on the phone from a Chromebook could be interesting as well.

    Perhaps I’m spoiled by what I’ve seen Windows users doing with Android phones and the Microsoft Your Phone app, something the company touted in its Surface Duo press event. Bringing a more cohesive experience between two devices as if they were one sounds appealing to me.

    As progress is made on the code behind Phone Hub, we’ll know more of course. This is one feature I’m watching very closely.

    Android Canary Channel Chrome OS Chrome OS 87 Chromebooks Phone Hub Productivity
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    Kevin Tofel
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    After spending 15 years in IT at Fortune 100 companies, Kevin turned a hobby into a career and began covering mobile technology in 2003. He writes daily on the industry and has co-hosted the weekly MobileTechRoundup podcast since 2006. His writing has appeared in print (The New York Times, PC Magazine and PC World) and he has been featured on NBC News in Philadelphia.

    2 Comments

    1. CajunMoses on September 11, 2020 3:20 pm

      Now that MS is sincerely committed to making products based on Android OS a fundamental component of its near-term financial success, I can very easily see it deeply integrating Android-related software and hardware into its product offerings to an extent well beyond the capabilities of Google’s rather unfocused imagination.

      • Kevin C. Tofel on September 11, 2020 3:25 pm

        I hope so, since I did get a Surface Duo yesterday. ?

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