Google announced today in a post on The Chromium Blog its intentions to accelerate the rate at which new stable versions of Google Chrome are released. The company states that they expect to release a new version every six weeks from now on. That’s twice as fast as new version are currently made available. Google Program Manager Anthony Laforge indicates that there are three reasons why the company has decided to speed up the release process.
- First, it’s to make new features available to users faster. As one would imagine, the company comes up with great new features all the time. However, users must usually wait a long time until an updated stable version is released to be able to enjoy all the new additions.
- Second, manage development more accurately. A program manager will be able to determine the amount of work that can be done in a certain time. Google wants to be more organized, predictable, and always on time.
- Third, to take pressure off engineers to finish new features before a deadline. Previously the engineering team was forced to either rush their work to meet a deadline, delay the release of a new Chrome version to complete the feature and subsequently affect users and even other features, or delay the feature itself. Now, features that are not finished on time can be released as soon as the six week period is over.
Google assures that the release of Chrome 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, and so on is now closer than ever imagined. Do take into account that as much as Google wants to keep up the six week cycle, there might be a few delays from time to time. The company states that the cycle should be okay as long as things are “running under ideal conditions.”