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Google has just made today a great day for Chrome Beta users on Android as the search giant has announced that the app will be receiving its biggest update in awhile. Usually, updates to the Chrome Beta app include nothing more than a handful of bug fixes, but this time that is not the case. Today Google has begun the rollout of version 45 of the Chrome Beta app on Android and with it comes the usual bug fixes, but also a few great improvements and new features.
With version 45 of the Chrome Beta app on Android comes an updated Bookmarks interface, improved logging for feedback reports, updated media playback controls, tons of bug fixes, performance improvements, and most importantly custom tabs. If you don’t remember, this isn’t the first time we have seen ‘custom tabs’ in Chrome, the feature was debuted at Google IO earlier this year. The reason this new feature is so noteworthy is because it has the potential to significantly change the way users interact with Android apps, in a good way.
For those of you who didn’t pay much attention to Google IO this year or just don’t know what Chrome custom tabs are, here’s a little help. Have you ever been using an Android app and tapped something within the said app only to be forced into whatever default browser you have on your device? It’s happened to us all and it’s not only a bad user experience, this transition from the app to the browser can take a while to happen as well. With Chrome custom tabs, this will no longer be the case, as long as developers get behind it.
Chrome custom tabs allow Android developers to, just as the name implies, customize the Chrome tabs that the user is sometimes forced into from their apps. Not only will this allow developers to customize the appearance of the Chrome tab, but it will also allow them to keep the users logged in through the process. More specifically, if a user is using the Pinterest app and taps something that forces them into the browser, they will not have to then login a second time within the browser. Chrome Beta version 45 appears to have already hit some users, but Google has said that the update should hit all users in the coming hours. If you use the app and haven’t checked for an update yet, you might as well do so now.