Google brings keyboard shortcuts and custom mouse buttons to ChromeOS

Google is rolling out a new ChromeOS update (M123) to its stable channel yesterday that brought features like the ability to customize keyboard shortcuts and mouse buttons and enabled hotspot connections on cellular Chromebooks. The company’s April updates also brought updates and bug fixes to Pixel Watches and Pixel phones from the 5A and up.

The keyboard shortcut feature will work like it does in other operating systems, in which you can assign specific actions to specific key combinations. Google uses the examples of tweaking shortcuts to be easier to carry out one-handed or making them resemble those you’re used to in, say, macOS. The same goes for mouse button customizing — if your mouse has extra buttons besides just left and right clicks, and you want to turn that weird side button into a mute button, you can do that in ChromeOS with this update.

The company also added per-app language preferences for Android apps that you’re running in ChromeOS, and it says it has made its offline text-to-speech voices more natural-sounding. As is Google’s way, these updates will be rolling out over the next few days.

Over on the Pixel Watch, Google added its own version of Taptic Time, the Apple Watch accessibility feature that tells you what time it is with vibrating “chimes.” The company also says it has made it easier to tell the difference when a wearer tweaks their watch’s auto-brightness setting.

Finally, the Pixel April update addresses issues like camera stability when switching between zooms and the camera not resetting its exposure when users tap on the screen. The company says it also fixed a biometrics bug where a black screen appeared when users unlocked their Pixels.