Well, that didn’t take long. Just hours before Google took the stage for The Android Show: I/O Edition, yesterday, a pretty massive leak dropped, giving us our best look yet at Aluminum OS, which should be running on the upcoming Googlebook hardware.
Leaker Mystic Leaks (who has been on a roll lately) shared a full 16-minute hands-on video of Aluminum OS running on a MacBook Pro through the UTM emulator, along with a healthy batch of screenshots. It’s giving us a real look at what Google has been cooking for laptops.
So what does Aluminum OS actually look like?
It looks like Android, which isn’t a huge surprise since the underlying framework is indeed Android.
You get a bottom app dock with an app drawer button, the familiar Google Search bar, and a folder full of Google apps right on the home screen. Tap the battery indicator, and Quick Settings slides down from the side in a compact panel. Tap the notification icon, and you get a similar slide-down panel. The setup wizard? Same one you’ve seen on every Pixel phone.
There are some genuinely interesting desktop features here, though. Virtual desktops are baked into the Recents view, letting you organize different workspaces and flip between them. There’s a Task Manager. Desktop folders are a thing. And maybe the most surprising addition: a “Link to iOS” app, which suggests Google is serious about pulling iPhone users into the ecosystem too. That tracks with what we’ve seen from leaked Aluminum OS wallpapers and early Play Store listings earlier this year.
Let’s be real, though. The leaker compared the current experience to “an upgraded Samsung DeX,” which isn’t exactly a glowing review. Most of the Google apps in the video are web-wrapped versions running in a window, not true native desktop apps. There’s no real mouse-and-keyboard optimization yet.
The good news is this is clearly an early build. As Googlebook isn’t launching until this Fall, so there’s likely quite a bit that will change between now and then.
The post Aluminum OS just leaked in a 16-minute video, and it looks a lot like “stock Android” appeared first on Android Headlines.
