Google Keep will be the first app to be supported

Sep 27, 2017 16:40 GMT  ·  By

It would appear that we will soon be able to add notes on our Chromebooks' lock screens as Google plans to implement note-taking support in the Linux-based Chrome OS operating system in a future update.

Spotted by XDA Developers, a commit landed recently in the Chrome OS repository to enable note taking apps by default on lock screen, starting with support for Google's own note taking app Google Keep, at least at first, as it should be possible for developers to add lock screen note taking functionality in their apps via an API.

As believed, this will enable users to quickly take notes on their Chromebook computers directly on the lock screen, without unlocking their devices, but we think it will be more useful for other people to leave you messages on your Chromebook when you're not at your desk.

Revamped lock screen coming soon to Chrome OS

The note-taking on lock screen feature could soon be available for testing in the developer channel of Chrome OS, but rest assured that you'll be the first to know when it arrives so you can switch your Chromebook to use the Chrome OS Dev channel if you can't wait until it hits the stable channel, which should happen later this year.

We believe that the note-taking feature could be Google's first attempt to allow more useful apps to be accessed from the lock screen on Chromebook devices.  As we reported a few months ago, Google also plans to refresh the sign-in and lock screens of Chrome OS with to look good on both landscape and portrait modes, but also to give Chromebook owners a more modern operating system.

These and many other new features, including the ability to rename attached USB drives, Night Light functionality, an all-new launcher, as well as the ability to monitor CPU and RAM usage in real-time, are available for testing on the Chrome Canary experimental channel, though we don't recommend using it on production Chromebooks.