ChromeOS has had a clean and straightforward design for some time, but a big Material You-focused makeover is standing by for a stable release later this year. One missing piece in this redesign are ChromeOS's hard and pointy corners, which stand in contrast to both the browser's own tabs but also the design the company brought to Android in recent years. The latest ChromeOS Canary update offers a glimpse at what to expect with a flag that allows users to activate rounded corners at various pixel radius options, ranging from 8 to 18 pixels.
Twitter user @cr_c2cv spotted that when users have the #rounded-windows flag enabled, these rounded corners will be applied to system elements like pop-out windows and full windows (via 9to5Google). With the atest updates, users will be able to control the level of rounding, from subtle curves to more pronounced corners. This is far more visually appealing but is not yet available for all users. It is currently exclusively for those who use the ChromeOS Canary channel, and we haven't been able to recreate it on ChromeOS Dev 116 just yet.
The option shown above is set to 18 pixels, but users can move it from Disabled to 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and just "enabled" or "default." It's unclear what happens if users just pick enabled or default and do not specify the number they'd like, but it may just choose based on the size of the browser window. @cr_c2cv shows what the corner removal looks like, and the rounded edges are more appealing.
Both Windows and Android feature rounded window corners, so Google is following a well-received trend in ChromeOS Canary. It's not clear if the rounded corners are available for all windows in ChromeOS just yet, including Linux and Android apps. The option's appearance in Canary updates shows that Google is actively working on bringing it to devices sooner rather than later.