A somewhat surprising sixth beta build has landed in the Chrome OS Beta Channel today, three days after had been expected to be released to the Stable Channel. Build 66.0.3359.137 (Platform version: 10452.74.0) is now available to most device that are registered in the Beta Channel and you can check for the update by typing chrome://help in the browser bar.
Chrome 66 for Chrome OS had been expected to be released by April 24th according to the Chromium Release Calendar but clearly the team has found some show stopping bugs or issues that have prevented that release. Delays are not common but they do happen if testers find an issue late in the beta cycle.
Assuming this build is stable, it is likely that we will see this .137 build land in the Stable Channel next week. As I put in my post last week about the 5th beta, the Chromium team often treats these final builds as a Release Candidate.
As for the reason for the delay, it isn’t 100% clear in the release notes. Over the course of the last few days, there appears to have been some work around the Android P SDK (API 28) in the build but it isn’t clear if that is the issue. Otherwise, the notes indicate several version increments for other under-the-hood changes.
The Chromium team has not given a revised release date for Chrome 66 to the Stable Channel but it shouldn’t be long now. Once it does land, it will bring all of the versions of Chrome – browsers, mobile and platforms – up to this latest build.
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