Today Mac users will be happy to know that rich notifications are being implemented on Mac. It’s still under heavy development but you can play with them by running chrome with the –enable-rich-notifications switch (no flag yet).
According to a Google+ post by Chromium evangelist François Beaufort, an issue log points to the Chrome notification center enhancements for OS X. The code string is depicted below and is listed as “[Mac][MC] Implement notification updates and relayouts.â€
François nots Mac users “will be happy to know that rich notifications are being implemented on Mac.â€
The feature is still “under heavy development,†but nevertheless strongly suggests that Google Now is likely to surface on Mac and Windows desktops via an upcoming update to the Chrome browser. These rich desktop notifications could also lend themselves perfectly to instant messages in Google’s rumored new Babel chat platform.
At any rate, we’d be willing to bet that a major new stable Chrome release with built-in Google Now will be released during Google I/O 2013, which runs May 15-17 at San Francisco’s Moscone West.
Previously Google Updated Chromium OS X build with support for the Chrome OS notifications.
Although rich notifications are yet to land on Chrome’s Canary OS X build (and then trickle down to Chrome Beta before being included in the stable build), the feature is an important prerequisite for Google Now, which relies on information cards popping up when needed.
This development is newsworthy on many levels.
Google appears to have found ways to build its own mini-platform within Apple’s iOS platform. Its native apps like YouTube and Maps can open links in the Chrome iOS browser rather than Safari.
Just yesterday, for example, the Gmail app added the ability for users to choose to use Google’s iOS apps over their stock counterparts from Apple.
More third party apps are supporting Chrome web links, including TapBots’ excellent Twitter iOS client, Tweetbot.
And earlier today, the search firm published a blog post as a reminder for iOS developers to add their app to Chrome’s Back button. Something like this would have been unheard of on iOS a few years back.
With the Chrome integration tools, Google explains in a
support doc, iOS developers can write apps that
“open a web page in Chrome and then return to your app with just one tap.â€
So, Could Google Now for Mac prove to be a big deal?
