Good news, Chromebook users: Zoom’s brand new Progressive Web App (PWA) will bring an improved user experience and additional features to your video calls. The app is slated to hit the Google Play Store on June 29 and will be an improvement over Zoom’s current Chrome and Chrome OS app.
Progressive Web Apps are similar to websites but can be “installed” like an app. They allow you to open them in their own window instance, instead of in your browser, but they still work like anything else you’d open in your browser. PWAs can also do anything they’d do in your browser like open links, show notification badges, get updates, and more. Plus, they take up less storage than desktop apps and tend to run faster, too!
The new PWA brings all of the good things you like from Zoom’s desktop version and brings tons of new features to the table as well. Now, Chromebook users can enjoy self-select breakout rooms, live transcription, raised hand and meeting reactions, customizable gallery view (on supported machines), live translation (with assigned interpreters), and a new background masking feature for privacy. Users will also have access to options like enabling or disabling video receiving, requesting remote control, and even launching polls or Q&A sessions.
Zoom is promising a host of additional new features that will roll out over the next three to six months, and the new web app is meant to be a complete replacement for its Chrome app in the Chrome Web store. If you own a Chromebook and are always on Zoom calls, be sure to snag the app for yourself on the 29th.