It’s no secret that your Chromebook’s app launcher could benefit from a serious user experience overhaul. As is the case today, Chrome OS lacks any method of sorting your apps, which means any rearrangement of your apps has to be done by hand, and it creates new pages in the launcher seemingly at the same time. hazard. The end result is an unusable mess, making it frustrating to find your important apps unless you use the search bar. After years of neglecting user feedback, it looks like Google is finally doing something about it.

We’re monitoring Google’s efforts to improve the app drawer experience on your Chromebook, including a completely redesigned launcher that’s much more mouse-friendly. While this was a welcome change, it didn’t fix the launcher’s dull app sorting issue that made it maddening to use. All of that could change, thanks to a working commit in progress first spotted by 9to5Google in the Chromium repository, which will add a new Chrome flag to enable app sorting.

Sorting apps in the launcher is finally underway.

Information on how Google will implement app sorting is scarce, so we don’t know the details of how it will work once implemented. We think (or just hope) this will allow people to sort their apps alphabetically, similar to the launcher found on Pixels, but it could sort apps by category as well. It will be available in an upcoming Chrome OS Canary update, which we can’t wait to try.

Personally, I can’t believe Google has been waiting this long to implement app sorting. The experience of the broken pitcher was a problem for years, and despite many comments asking to include a reasonable way to sort apps (including a great article written by ChromeUnboxed), Google simply ignored it. I’m glad Google is finally doing something, but honestly it should have happened path earlier.

And this is where the underlying problem lies: There are still some serious bugs and glitches in Chrome OS that have been around for years despite constant reports from users. Issues like janky multitasking in tablet mode and lack of polish to the system UI (where’s the simple calendar widget, Google?) Stagnant development is not good for new users who plan to long-term use of Chrome OS.

Time will tell when Google adds app sorting to Chrome OS. If done competently, it could finally solve a serious usability issue – I just hope it happens soon rather than later.