Google has released a new desktop app called Essentials, which brings together the company’s services such as Messages and Photos. In addition to this, the program contains links by clicking on which you can begin interacting with other Google services. The product will ship with new Windows PCs from various manufacturers, the first of which will be HP laptops.
Image source: Google
The Essentials app lets you “find and install many of our best services,” Google says. What we know so far is that Essentials will allow you to view images stored in the Photos app, as well as send and receive messages through the Messages app. The full list of available services has not yet been announced, but judging by the published images, users will have access to Sheets, Drive, Nearby Share and Google One (Essentials offers a free two-month trial for new subscribers).
In the near future, HP will begin pre-installing Google Essentials on all of its new computers manufactured under the brands Envy, Pavillion, Omen, and others. At the same time, users will be able to optionally remove individual parts of Essentials or the entire application if they do not need it. It is currently unknown whether users will be able to download Essentials themselves onto the computers they already own.
Among other things, Essentials includes the Google Play Games application, which allows you to download popular Android games such as Clash of Clans to your computer. You can access Google Play Games not only in Essentials, but also through the HP Omen Gaming Hub service.