Google Begins Fixing its Googlebook Mess

Google should be ashamed of the shoddy, half-assed state of Googlebook OS at its launch, and I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Reviewers everywhere who either got a device from Google or a hardware maker or just ran out and paid for one themselves have all reported on missing features, functional regressions compared to Chrome OS, and other problems.

For bloggers, YouTubers, and others in the Google camp, this is a gut-check moment and not everyone is rising to the challenge. For me, this is just a massive disappointment. Chrome OS and the Chromebooks that run it were always a great idea, and they’ve improved dramatically over the years. And while Googlebook does move the needle on this platform as I had speculated, I am still troubled that it did so in the wrong direction. Googlebook is a step backward.

The good news is that this is just a software problem, and that means it can be fixed. The bad news it that this is Google we’re talking about, and its care and oversight of its personal computing platforms is spotty at best.  So the only question now is whether this turns into a Sonosgate-level scandal or Google gets on top of it quickly and fixes all the issues everyone is encountering.

That remains to be seen, but Google is taking the first steps to improve Googlebook OS. That it has revealed this on Reddit is vaguely disconcerting, but I suppose that’s where the loudest complaints can be found. In any event, Google says it is rolling out the following changes to Googlebook OS:

Smoother first-time setup. First-step setup is one of the few high points of the Googlebook experience, so this one is a bit curious. But a Google Play services update that’s rolling out over the next few days will reduce the steps needed to set up Cross-devices services and “help improve certain timing issues where the setup QR code stays on the screen after completing phone setup.”

Samsung support. This is the biggest issue, of course: The world’s most popular phones are incompatible with Googlebook at launch. With this update, however, the Googlebook “Better Together” features–i.e. phone integration features like Continue On, Cast My Apps, Quick Access, and Notification Sync–will work with Samsung phones running Android 17 and One UI 9.0 or higher.

So, yes, baby steps. But steps forward nonetheless.