Skip to main content

Chrome OS beta gets touch screen drag and drop, text selection features

Chrome OS beta gets touch screen drag and drop, text selection features

Share this story

Chrome Logo
Chrome Logo

Chrome OS's touch screen features continue to grow. On Wednesday, Google updated the Chrome OS beta channel, adding touch-enabled drag and drop and text selection. Chrome evangelist François Beaufort demoed drag and drop on a Chromebook Pixel in a YouTube video shared a couple weeks ago. For now, the Pixel is the only Chrome OS device with a touch screen, and thus the only place you can try this out for yourself, provided you're on the beta channel.

So far, touch on Chrome OS has been mostly confined to opening links, tapping through menus, panning photos, and scrolling around web pages. There are a few touch screen gestures, such as pinch-to-zoom, which Pixel users can switch on manually. Google is reportedly working with hardware makers to bring more touch screen Chromebooks to market later on this year — yet another reason to expect touch in Chrome to keep evolving.