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Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

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Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#211

Post by pgeorgi »

millstone wrote: post #120
notacoward wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Anybody who repeats the "Chromebooks are for kids who don't do anything sophisticated with their computers" schtick is just showing off their ignorance. A decent Chromebook (e.g. a Pixel or soon one of the HP/Acer models) plus Crouton is a more real development machine than anything Apple ever made, because it's more like the server where you'll eventually deploy. Then, unlike any of the other dozen Linux…

> Crouton is a more real development machine than anything Apple ever made, because it's more like the server where you'll eventually deploy Well, this assumes one particular type of development! I would not choose a Chromebook to develop, say, Chrome! I tried Crouton a few years ago, wanting to run xbmc. Audio didn't work, because it required a newer version of the Linux kernel. It turns out you can't just install a…

> you have to use a patched device-specific kernel that Google provides

Only because upstreaming is so slow. Those patches end up on the relevant mailing lists and eventually get merged.

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#212

Post by simula67 »

radiorental wrote: post #210
simula67 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional software ( Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, CAD etc ) and a large majority of games only runs on Windows. There is a plethora of software already developed for Windows which will continue to only run on Windows. There is a large number of people who have bet their careers on Windows and Microsoft. Microsoft has billions of dollars of runway even now and they are a very diversified company in terms…

>Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, CAD etc... only runs on Windows. That's flat out incorrect. I'll bet Adobe sell more Mac licenses.

You are right of course, I was comparing them to ChromeOS. Now that ChromeOS about to be able to run Android apps Photoshop Express and Office Mobile will be available, but they are essentially offering a different feature set.

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#213

Post by pgeorgi »

djrogers wrote: post #166
geofft wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gather that you're implying the primary purpose of Chromebooks is tracking users to deliver ads? Are users tracked any more on a Chromebook than a) a MacBook Air running Chrome b) a MacBook Air running Safari?

> Are users tracked any more on a Chromebook than a) a MacBook Air running Chrome b) a MacBook Air running Safari Can you use a Chromebook without being logged in to a Google account? Can you block ads, trackers, and other creepy JavaScript on a Chromebook? Even the ones from Google?

Using a chromebooks without logging in with a google account is painful (as you have no local state without that), so there's that.

You can run all Chrome extensions, including µblock , adblock , privacy badger, ...

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#214

Post by uola »

cs702 wrote: post #115
j2kun wrote: post #104

I think it's hilarious how little the HN community knows about Chromebooks. Every time it pops up, there's a wave of people saying "I don't know a single person who has one!" and "They seem useless without an internet connection!" and "I wonder how they compare to mac books." People forget that most of the world doesn't write code, and doesn't need native applications. They write email, take selfies, and write extrem…

The "Year of the Linux Desktop" FINALLY arrived, and the HN community finds out about it after the fact from the mainstream media...

Not really though. What has happened is that the web has come closer to the desktop not the other way around. It's almost the antithesis to desktop Linux. It's like "the only way we could make Linux mainstream is to ignore anything but the core and run everything in a web browser".

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#215

Post by thomasz »

vacri wrote: post #164
ekianjo wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd be amazed how many people encounter a problem with their computer and give up because "it's mad at me." This isn't an educational problem Wow, you'd have to wonder how everyone here actually learned how to use computers back when there was no Internet and no help from your friends because you were the only one using them. It's NEVER been easier to use a computer nowadays, not just because they have become bet…

Don't be so elitist. "Back in the old days", computers were a niche item that only called to enthusiasts. Now they're an everyday appliance. It's like calling people lazy because they call a refrigeration technician to fix their fridge rather than do it themselves. Computers are ridiculously complex, and you need a ton of knowledge to even start troubleshooting any but the most trivial problem.

Most of the old os related pain points have become rather trivial, like installing peripheral hardware, upgrading software and searching for stuff. 95% of the remaining complexity comes from applications, not the OS. They wont go away by porting those applications to html5.

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#216

Post by comex »

HappyTypist wrote: post #187
ekianjo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's clear that locally installed software is going away Where performance matters, locally installed software is NOT going away anytime soon. Oh, just take gaming, for example. Good luck making AAA games run in your browser.

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/12/mozilla-and-epic-pr...

> In less than 12 months, optimizations have increased the performance of Web applications using asm.js from 40% to within 67% of native,

which is still about the current figure, per arewefastyet: http://arewefastyet.com/#machine=29&view=breakdown&suite=asm...

Not going to cut it for AAA games. Most likely it can be improved significantly with enough work, especially with WebAssembly, but I'll wait until I see it.

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#217

Post by [deleted] »

j2kun wrote: post #104

I think it's hilarious how little the HN community knows about Chromebooks. Every time it pops up, there's a wave of people saying "I don't know a single person who has one!" and "They seem useless without an internet connection!" and "I wonder how they compare to mac books." People forget that most of the world doesn't write code, and doesn't need native applications. They write email, take selfies, and write extrem…

[deleted]

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#218

Post by millstone »

comex wrote: post #216
HappyTypist wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/12/mozilla-and-epic-pr...

> In less than 12 months, optimizations have increased the performance of Web applications using asm.js from 40% to within 67% of native, which is still about the current figure, per arewefastyet: http://arewefastyet.com/#machine=29&view=breakdown&suite=asm... Not going to cut it for AAA games. Most likely it can be improved significantly with enough work, especially with WebAssembly, but I'll wait until I see it.

Anyways, what does the end game look like here?

Only very small games can be downloaded every time you want to play. Most games have large resources that will need to be cached. But the cache will be large enough that you'll want to surface it to the user, and let them decide what to uninstall, especially on Chromebooks with their puny storage.

Plus games are something you want to be able to play offline.

So we just wind up with Steam, right?

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#219

Post by magicalist »

uola wrote: post #214
cs702 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Year of the Linux Desktop" FINALLY arrived, and the HN community finds out about it after the fact from the mainstream media...

Not really though. What has happened is that the web has come closer to the desktop not the other way around. It's almost the antithesis to desktop Linux. It's like "the only way we could make Linux mainstream is to ignore anything but the core and run everything in a web browser".

It's a bit silly to argue that adding a graphical shell and a widget toolkit is anywhere near an "antithesis to desktop Linux."

Re: Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

#220

Post by jsolson »

toss1941 wrote: post #188
greggman wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's clamoring for apps? AFAICT that's only the companies that want the apps because it lets them spy on their customers in more ways.

Any disk IO intensive application is going to run and/or scale very poorly as a webapp.

What client workload is actually disk intensive by nature?
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