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Google’s not-so-secret new OS

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Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#41

Post by MBCook »

mastazi wrote: post #32
pier25 wrote: post #9

We definitely need a universal OS for all our devices and I really believe Google is in a great position to get us there. It would really surprise me if Apple got there first. Tim lacks vision and will keep on milking iOS even if the iPad Pro is a failure as a laptop replacement. Windows is still king in the desktop space, at least as far a user base goes, but it's terrible on tablets and phones. MS has all the tech…

> Windows [...] [is] terrible on tablets and phones. Surface tablets seem to be doing OK though.

What percent of people regularly use them as tablets without the keyboard?

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#42

Post by thewhitetulip »

vlunkr wrote: post #23
thewhitetulip wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we do. I want my phone and my laptop to be in total sync, I want to be able to write code on my mobile which I can just continue on my laptop without any hindrance, currently I have a mac and an android phone, I do have Go and Python installed on my mobile, but it isn't that great to code on my mobile, I have to host the repo on an internal version of gogs to get the code synced up and I still have to manually p…

You could always develop remotely, use your phone to ssh into a more powerful machine. Use tmux or screen and pick up right where you were on a laptop or desktop. This is far more compelling IMHO.

Yes, I have to figure out the typing issue with mobile first!

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#43

Post by skybrian »

re: "Flutter was [...]"

A bit weird to use the past tense here since it's not reached 1.0 yet. You can try it out today (tech preview) to create apps in Dart that run on Android and iOS:

https://flutter.io/

(Googler, not on the Flutter team itself, but working on related developer tools.)

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#45

Post by roymurdock »

techenthusiast wrote: post #10

Article author here. Posted this in the notes, but possibly too buried: For anyone interested, I intend to write quite often about consumer technology on this blog. Topics will include hardware, software, design, and more. You can follow via RSS or Twitter, and possibly through other platforms soon. Sorry for the self promotion! Thanks for reading. Please do send any corrections or explanations.

Wondering what your background is as you state you're not a programmer but you can obviously parse code (at least at a high level) and have familiarity with the OS ecosystem. Market research? Great analysis btw.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#46

Post by thewhitetulip »

gigatexal wrote: post #35
thewhitetulip wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we do. I want my phone and my laptop to be in total sync, I want to be able to write code on my mobile which I can just continue on my laptop without any hindrance, currently I have a mac and an android phone, I do have Go and Python installed on my mobile, but it isn't that great to code on my mobile, I have to host the repo on an internal version of gogs to get the code synced up and I still have to manually p…

And can a universal OS be everything to a power user and still be useful to a beginner?

Yes, for a beginner who does not need the advanced stuff, they can just ignore it right?

As of now, I never use Google drive sync, I use syncthing to sync folders between mobile and my Mac.

Universal OS rocks! (I hope it is in line with my vision of how the concept of universality is) I want to just visually ssh the phone and the machine, or rather the OS is in the phone and I just connect it to the machine, there was some project recently I don't know if it is available now.

Edit: Why the downvotes?

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#48

Post by mastazi »

nitemice wrote: post #20
pier25 wrote: post #9

We definitely need a universal OS for all our devices and I really believe Google is in a great position to get us there. It would really surprise me if Apple got there first. Tim lacks vision and will keep on milking iOS even if the iPad Pro is a failure as a laptop replacement. Windows is still king in the desktop space, at least as far a user base goes, but it's terrible on tablets and phones. MS has all the tech…

As much as I'd like to see it, I don't think Windows will ever quite get there. Not, at least, in any recognisable form. They value backwards-compatibility way to much (which is to be commended in some ways, but won't save them here). While they seem to have everything lined up to be able to turn it into something, developers seem too reluctant to get on-board too. Apple will have to go through all of the growing pai…

> developers seem too reluctant to get on-board too

Might be limited to your specific environment though. As a counter-example among the people I know there are far more .NET devs than the total sum of iOS/Mac/Android devs.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#49

Post by sjtgraham »

> The pitch will clearly be that developers can write a Flutter app once and have it run on Andromeda, Android, and iOS with minimal extra work, in theory.

This is worrying for Apple. I can see the following playing out

- Apple continues releasing machines like the TB MBP, much to exasperated developer dismay.

- Other x86 laptop industrial design and build quality continue to improve.

- Fuchsia/Andromeda itself becomes a compelling development environment

- Developers begin switching away from Mac OS to Fuchsia, Linux and Windows

- Google delivers on the promise of a WORA runtime and the biggest objective reason not to abandon Mac OS, i.e. writing apps for iOS, disappears.

- Apps start to look the same on iOS and Android. iOS becomes less compelling.

- iOS devices sales begin to hurt.

Granted that the App Store submission requires Mac OS (Application Loader) and the license agreement requires you only use Apple software to submit apps to the App Store and not write your own, but it seems flimsy to rely on that.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#50

Post by bitmapbrother »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #12

Is this an actual plan of Google as a company, or is this some sort of Microsoft-style war between divisions where the Chrome team has just decided on its own that the future is based on Chrome and Dart? Also, considering the way that the ARC runtime for Chromebooks was a failure and had to be replaced by a system that apparently essentially runs Android in a container, will it really be possible for a completely dif…

I think Google just wants to transition to an OS with a micro-kernel architecture with the smallest possible attack surface. Also, user space drivers should help with the update problems they've always had with Android.
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