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Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

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Re: Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

#11

Post by AlexMuir »

paul wrote: post #8
i386 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Google started to make noise about Chrome OS I had a similar thought - what company in their right mind would want two mobile operating systems?

It was a more plausible sounding strategy before the iPad came out. Now that it's clear that tablets are huge, and that Android will be Google's tablet OS, then you start to wonder why adding a keyboard sudden switches you to a different OS (losing all of the Android apps in the process).

"it's clear that tablets are huge". I agree but I'd say it's clear that the iPad is huge, and that tablets will be huge. So far there's no competitor to the iPad. I'm not sure why Google are arsing around with the Cr-48 (a netbook/laptop) - they need to get their resources behind a tablet.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

#13

Post by al_james »

albertzeyer wrote: post #12

I wonder why this the prediction goes this way. Wouldn't the other way around make more sense? Chrome OS seems much more modern. But maybe too far ahead.

Why is it more modern? Its just a thin layer of Linux with chrom(ium) over the top. True, chrome is modern, but I am not sure the Linus layer is.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

#14

Post by JarekS2 »

Google ChromeOS and Google Wave share some similarities in terms of marketing messaging behind those products. In both cases biggest value of both products is in business - they should never be marketed as a consumer products.

I agree with Paul that ChromeOS with its current market target will fail - just like Wave did.

But there is still hope for ChromeOS. Google should target bigger companies with it. Make it a hardware extension of their Google Apps offering. IT departments and CFOs will love them.

And you know what? I think that they are thinking about this already - that is why we've seen Citrix client there.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

#15

Post by al_james »

In many ways, the most difficult decision would be how to merge the two different app development environments. Andriod is getting traction (in part) due to some excellent apps. These apps are developed in java that compiles to Android specific bytecode. So, from that, any merged OS would need to maintain the Android VM layer, otherwise backward compatibility would be hard.

On the other hand, chrome could be ported to Android quite easily.

So I see a Android like OS where Android Apps and Chrome web apps exist side by side (on the same desktop).

Re: Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

#17

Post by trezor »

My favourite quote from that article is the following one:

    Update: more from Buchheit in the FriendFeed thread:

    ChromeOS has no purpose that isn’t better served by Android (perhaps with a few
    mods to support a non-touch display).
    
    I was thinking, “is this too obvious to even state?”, but then I see people
    taking ChromeOS seriously, and Google is even shipping devices for some
    reason.
I fully agree with this one, and honestly don't understand the rage around Chrome OS. OK, so it's from Google, but it's still merely a crippled Linux-distro where you don't get to touch the local filesystem.

I doubt it will stay around for long.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

#18

Post by axod »

AlexMuir wrote: post #11
paul wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a more plausible sounding strategy before the iPad came out. Now that it's clear that tablets are huge, and that Android will be Google's tablet OS, then you start to wonder why adding a keyboard sudden switches you to a different OS (losing all of the Android apps in the process).

"it's clear that tablets are huge". I agree but I'd say it's clear that the iPad is huge, and that tablets will be huge. So far there's no competitor to the iPad. I'm not sure why Google are arsing around with the Cr-48 (a netbook/laptop) - they need to get their resources behind a tablet.

Are tablets huge, or are touchscreens huge?

To know, we need some decent laptops with touchscreens.

It seems like the best of both worlds will clearly be a tablet that docks to the bottom half of a laptop - so we get a laptop with a tablet that can be carried around.

I also think it's a fairly good long term bet. At the moment we're in this strange 'appstore' download applications era which is like being back in the 1990s. This current era will end once wifi etc is everywhere and the novelty value of downloading an application has worn off.

Obviously for a hardware heavy device such as a mobile phone, you need some specific OS to be able to interface with all the hardware, take calls, etc. But for a laptop, where the user is mainly just surfing the web, things don't need to be so involved. That's why I think both are necessary.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

#19

Post by axod »

trezor wrote: post #17

My favourite quote from that article is the following one: Update: more from Buchheit in the FriendFeed thread: ChromeOS has no purpose that isn’t better served by Android (perhaps with a few mods to support a non-touch display). I was thinking, “is this too obvious to even state?”, but then I see people taking ChromeOS seriously, and Google is even shipping devices for some reason. I fully agree with this one, and h…

It still makes an absolute ton of sense for people who only use the web.

The browser on android is OK, but it's nowhere near Chrome afaics.

I believe ChromeOS is going after the non-techy market of people who don't care about all the bells and whistles of android. I think both could still be successful.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

#20

Post by jallmann »

This whole state of affairs is making me very, very sad.

I hope ChromeOS wins, only because it has a sane development model -- sans the whole being-stuck-in-the-cloud thing. If ChromeOS ever allows running local apps, that'd be tops. I'm not talking about offline HTML5 either, but exposing hardware/OS capabilities via JS or an FFI.

The iPhone/Android approach to app dev is antiquated and absolutely painful in comparison.

I really should be rooting for WebOS. Go HP!

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