Just over a week after launching the stable version of Chrome 26, Google has announced the release of Chrome 27 beta for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Among the new features is a big boost to page loads (now 5 percent faster) as well as significant updates for developers.
The speed improvement is thanks to the introduction of “smarter behind-the-scenes resource scheduling,” Google explains. Unless otherwise noted, updates apply to desktop versions of Chrome and Chrome for Android. Google says Web content now appears on the screen 5 percent faster on average thanks to these changes.
At first, that may not seem like a huge difference, but when you realize how quickly a page loads on Chrome already, it’s a huge jump. Starting with this release, the scheduler more aggressively uses an idle connection and demotes the priority of preloaded resources so that they don’t interfere with critical assets.
Next up is the tweaking of the month, week, and date <input> types. They now feature a simpler user interface on desktop versions of Chrome:
Google also has two API announcements. The first is live audio input to Web Audio API and the second is the Sync FileSystem API for Chrome apps.
Developers can now use live audio as input to the Web Audio API for extremely low-latency local audio manipulation and playback, but only on Windows and OS X for now. If you use Web Audio and WebRTC PeerConnection, you can manipulate the input signal to WebRTC.
The Sync FileSystem API meanwhile is a new offline storage API for Chrome packaged apps which automatically synchronizes stored data across clients via Google Drive. The files are stored in private sandboxes and can be manipulated with the HTML5 File API and FileSystem API ( sample app).
As for the DevTools, dock-to-right now supports vertical split view and you can right-click resources in the Network tab to “Copy as cURL.” The network panel has been improved to let you customize what columns are shown, including the new “domain” one. Console messages can now also be filtered by source, and impl-side painting events are properly displayed in the timeline.
The full Google Chrome 27 beta changelog is as follows (SVN log):
- Faster page loads.
- Elegant HTML5 date and time <input> forms.
- Live audio input to Web Audio API.
- Sync FileSystem API for Chrome Apps.
- DevTools updates.
- And lots of other features for developers.
Chrome 27 is slated to be released in May. We’ll let you know when it arrives.
Top Image credit: T. Al Nakib
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