Gmail Creator Says Chrome OS Is As Good As Dead 349
An anonymous reader writes "Former Google employee, Gmail creator, and FriendFeed founder Paul Buchheit has come right out and said what many people are thinking (or hoping for). On his FriendFeed page, Buchheit made a post titled 'Prediction: ChromeOS will be killed next year (or "merged" with Android).' In it, he bluntly says that Google's netbook-centric Chrome OS is as good as dead. 'Yeah, 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,' Buchheit writes. 'Because ChromeOS has no purpose that isn't better served by Android (perhaps with a few mods to support a non-touch display).'"
Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
It's not about "convergence". The cloud is dying. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think convergence between Android and ChromeOS is the most insignificant part of this.
The most important thing to note is that people are getting fed up with the so-called "cloud". That approach has been hyped for a few years now, and while many of us realized it's a bad approach from the very start, the rest are finding this out the hard way. After so much failure and hardship, people want nothing to do with it.
It's basically the same situation that happened with Ruby and Ruby on Rails. They were "new" and "trendy" technologies that got a lot of hype. Smart people saw that Ruby was basically Perl with a slightly more readable (but less powerful) syntax, and that Rails was nothing but yet another web development framework. A lot of non-technical people who just wanted to sell books and host conferences built up a massive hype storm. Given that this foundation was not based on merit of any sort, Ruby and Rails were never able to prove themselves as being solutions to real problems. People soon got fed up with them, and went back to proven technologies.
People want to use real, locally-running applications that help get work done, where their data can be kept local and safe. They don't want to dick around with half-assed web "apps" that just make life miserable, and makes data retrieval damn near impossible.
Re:It's not about "convergence". The cloud is dyin (Score:5, Insightful)
Who, exacly, is fed up with the "cloud" besides we, the average slashdotters? People are using "cloud" services more and more, like Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, etc. Companies, Universities and even public organizations are moving to Gmail and other Google services (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/three-million-businesses-have-gone.html [blogspot.com]).
Where are this people moving from the "cloud" to locally based applications and services?
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People will be using the "cloud" when these and other companies start hosting on the cloud rather than self-hosting.
And that won't happen until the cloud actually lives up to what it's advertised as. Google Apps is actually the closest. All of the others, like Amazon (You predefine your server, hard to dynamically grow (automatically)), are just the same of the likes of Rackspace... Virtual hosting.
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I thought "the cloud" was "the cluster", but with a billing model based on disk/cpu[/memory] used in a given timeframe, and these values being easily dynamically allocable during a given time frame.
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I think it depends on the level of abstraction. EC2 is similar to that, but something like Google Apps (_not_ App Engine) is cloud too, just on a higher level (application instead of disk/cpu/memory).
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Uh, the link I posted was about 3 million business moving to Google Apps, so I don't see how is my definition any different from yours.
Or do you mean Google App Engine, which is different from Google Apps? But even if you do, Google Apps runs on the Google cloud like any App Engine application, so I don't see the difference.
And Amazon EC2 is cloud computing, just at a lower level of abstraction. How could you do auto scaling otherwise?
Re:It's not about "convergence". The cloud is dyin (Score:5, Insightful)
Where are this people moving from the "cloud" to locally based applications and services?
While I agree with your basic premise that average people aren't sitting around raging about cloud services, I do disagree somewhat with the above. Speaking for myself, I very often choose to use the Amazon or eBay apps on my iPad rather than using the web sites. Let's face it, web sites SUCK compared to traditional applications. We tolerate it because we were drunk with the mass variety of web sites, but when you come right down to usability and responsiveness, HTML (yes, even 5) is a crude, crude, CRUDE tool.
Using a local binary app on the iPad is just so much better than using the respective web site. Maybe we'll see better web technology in the future, but it's hard to compete with a locally running application for responsiveness.
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I feel like a lot of the apps could be implemented in html though. All you have to realize is that 100% wide clickable areas (like the lists in an android app) are just fine, even though they look weird on a monitor.
Re:It's not about "convergence". The cloud is dyin (Score:4, Insightful)
But you're still relying heavily on cloud based services to host and process the data - the app is just a frontend to a webservice. I don't think it's the language the UI is written or the way you download the code the difference between the "cloud" or locally-running apps.
In fact, moving towards cloud hosted webservices means you can have multiple UI frontends in any language and for any platform with much less porting effort.
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My point is not that it matters in general, it's that it's not relevant to assess if $application is cloud based or not.
A native application that relies on the "cloud" to store and process data is still a cloud application, regardless of its language.
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I predict that after people get disillusioned with "the cloud", there'll be a strong push towards moving your data back onto devices you physically own.
See, I can make predictions, too.
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I'm not making any predictions, I'm saying people are *already* moving, and posted a link about 3 million companies which have already moved.
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Who, exacly, is fed up with the "cloud" besides we, the average slashdotters? People are using "cloud" services more and more, like Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, etc. Companies, Universities and even public organizations are moving to Gmail and other Google services (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/three-million-businesses-have-gone.html [blogspot.com]).
Where are this people moving from the "cloud" to locally based applications and services?
Meaning... lotsa businesses. You think that those businesses (trying to save a buck by moving into the "cloud") are going to buy new ChromeOS-powered netbooks for their employees to continue working?
I'm sort-of seeing the netbooks and the "cloud for businesses" as two separated market segments (and the very definition of a market segment says that what happens with the prices/sale-volumes in one won't influence what happens in others: if not so, the market segmentation is faulty).
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I, for one, welcome our cloud-based overlords!
You're very late to that party.
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I beg to differ (Score:5, Insightful)
People want to use real, locally-running applications that help get work done, where their data can be kept local and safe. They don't want to dick around with half-assed web "apps" that just make life miserable, and makes data retrieval damn near impossible.
I'm writing this in the safe mode of my windows laptop. Why? Because it crashes constantly. It didn't do that a week ago, it hasn't been physically damaged and it doesn't do that in the safe mode so I doubt that it is a hardware issue. Rather, some process has gone nuts and Windows can't handle it. Perhaps updater to some application I have has corrupted or began interacting poorly with my firewall or whatever... God knows. I, on the other hand, have been trying to stop all unnecessary processes from autostarting and constantly booting between safe mode and normal mode in order to find the culprit... But haven't succeeded yet. It is made more difficult by the fact that there is no way of knowing which processes are essential to the system and which are not.
I, for one, would love to use "half-assed web apps" instead of going through the hell that is managing all the applications on your computer. You can say "Haha, it sounds like you suck" or "Haha, Windows sucks". Well, perhaps. Let's assume that I, a third year software engineering student, don't have the basic skills required to maintain the computer. Or that the world's most used OS is a horrible piece of crap. Even if either of those is true, it's also a symptom of the underlying problem: Computers have became so complex that even if it is possible to understand everything that you desktop is doing at any given time, it's a shitload of work and there are very few people who really do understand that all (No, I don't believe that all Linux users do, even if they technically could). That being the case, there are rather obvious benefits for Joe Average (or even tech savvier people) for not having to deal with it. Oh, just think of the web apps: Little more than a group of bookmarks. No registry entries, no hidden processes... What you see is what you get. The things can be clearly divided to two categories: Simple things on your end, and the the cloud, details of which won't bother you. (IE: The original meaning of the cloud)
Sure, there are some problems but I don't know if they're all that serious. At least not for everyone. It's a rare condition that I don't have internet access. It's a lot more common condition that I have other minor computer woes. The problems with the cloud are different than the ones without it, but it's a stretch to call them greater and a massive stretch to say that people specifically want the old/current way. Also, your point about difficult data retrieval baffles me... I would say 9 times out of ten, the data in the datacenters, is better backed up, is less likely to get lost/stolen/etc. If you refer to a situation where you permanently deleted something and a regular hard drive would still let you recover it but you can't do it through the cloud apps... That's a feature that hasn't been implemented in cloud apps but not an inherent problem with the cloud.
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its just a matter of reliability and speed. there is going to be a time when internet will be completely ubiquitous, high speed all over, and have an insignificant downtime percentage. as we move toward that ideal state, web apps will continue to inch toward 'good enough' for most people. the fact is that people won't need this powerful machines, they just need fast, always-there network access. what is it that you think can't be done over the internet? and please don't list research and other fringe cases.
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How can people be fed up with 'the cloud' when most people don't even know what it is? You really think those MS commercials are enough to make people understand what the cloud does?
Like most techies you're completely focusing on the wrong thing. Most people don't care about clouds, rails, ruby, or any other tool. They care about solved problems. They care about storing their pictures in a way that they can access them from anywhere and never lose them. If it's the cloud and RoR that makes this happen
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Seems it isn't so bad that I didn't bother with RoR and all that other new stuff when I started writing web apps 4-5 years ago. I decided to use Perl. It's fine for web apps, and also handy when you need to do local scripts too. It's also standard on most Linux installs which is nice. Though probably if I learned a bit of bash scripting I could do the same batch processing stuff with even less effort using standard UNIXy utilities.
Sounds like I should have a look at Lisp sometime :) though really the days w
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Random question:
What's the abbreviation for Google Chrome? There's IE and FF and SM and O10, but I'm typing on the non-google chromium right now, and can't think of a convenient abbreviation. Cr2O3 is the chemical formula but unwieldy. Maybe CrO or CR.
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What's the abbreviation for Google Chrome?
Maybe I'm oversimplifying the problem, but GC seems to jump out...
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>>>GC seems to jump out...
And of course Mozilla Firefox would be MF or Mo-Fo. Thanks! :-D I'll stick with CR for chromium (not google)(spits).
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(The bold text is the AC putting words into Paul Buchheit's mouth)
Former Google employee, Gmail creator, and FriendFeed founder Paul Buchheit has come right out and said what many people are thi
Never (Score:2)
With ChromeOS, us First Post trolls will always win!
Re:Never (Score:4, Funny)
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But I don't actually have ChromeOS yet, so I guess I proved I need it ;).
Of course I'm not an actual first post troll either, so maybe I'm just too slow on the draw.
My prediction (Score:3, Interesting)
Whatever the heck ChromeOS is (never heard of it), I can tell you one thing for sure: this guy Paul Buchheit might be right, but he sounds more like he has an axe to grind with the ChromeOS team than anything else.
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ChromeOS is basically a Linux distro that only has a browser. The Chrome browser is the desktop shell, it can't be minimized and it has a small systray with battery and network icons instead of maximize/minimize buttons. And that's it (really).
I agree with the guy from TFA, ChromeOS is not interesting because...well, the average Linux distro can also browse the web and nobody is adopting it massively because of that. IMO ChromeOS is only getting attention because people believes that everything that comes f
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IMO ChromeOS is only getting attention because people believes that everything that comes from Google is cool. But when I tried [hexxeh.net] ChromeOS, I experience the same sensation I had when I tried Wave.
Same here. I even compiled it after trying the hexxeh binary in the hope that hexxeh had somehow disable the cool part of chromeos.
I really like all of google's products and really wish I could afford an android phone, but the chromeos is very disapointing.
I prefer jolicloud if I need to live in a cloud.
That said, I can see this being useful in setting where everything is internet based apps (like a library or kiosk.) I imagine the hardware requirements would be real low.
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If you have never heard of it, what good is your prediction? Personally I think he's right, but I dont see any axe grinding -- He, like many, believes Android to be far superior to ChromeOS, which it really is. Google was recently put on the spot for why they are developing two different operating systems, and to have a former Google employee speaking frankly about which he thinks is better doesn't seem much like axe grinding. Anyways, if you have never heard of a product, next time maybe you should, you
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You don't come here often, do you? "chromeos site:slashdot.org" -> 709 results.
Too big a change too soon (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with ChromeOS is it is trying to solve a problem them doesn't exist. Why upload data into the cloud if you don't need to share it or have access to it on the move?
You don't want to need to upload all your data to the cloud before you can do anything with it.
Cloud computing makes sense for people who want to rent computer processing power on an adhoc basis to solve computational problems.
Computing needs to gradually move to new technologies, it rarely makes huge leaps. ChromeOS would be better being a full Linux desktop for now with cloud services instead of being fully cloud based.
Re:Too big a change too soon (Score:5, Insightful)
Why upload data into the cloud if you don't need to share it or have access to it on the move?
1) so you can look hip and tell your friends you work "in the cloud"
2) because you generously want to share all your data with Google, so they can turn around and sell it for beaucoup bucks to marketers and get rich on your back
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Re:Too big a change too soon (Score:4, Insightful)
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Personally I think the backup thing is a red herring in the consumer market. How hard is it to plug a USB hard drive in and use Time Machine/Windows Backup? It's a little more complicated in Linux, but not much and anyone with the technical chops to get Linux working in the first place can almost certainly handle it. Since Windows 7 (maybe Vista? I dunno, never used Vista seriously) and OSX 10.5 backups on the two major consumer OSes are incredibly easy. Granted, if you are hit by some major natural di
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It's a little more complicated in Linux
On the server side, I would argue that Linux it is easier. I'm not an "expert" although I have used Linux for years, and I remote backup data with a script that simply tars, gzips, and sftp's the data securely using 'expect'. Including rotating a couple dozen backups, it is a few dozen lines of script, and since it is sftp, it is encrypted on the journey. Not for rookies, granted, but it is simple and easy and doesn't require THAT much to figure out and doesn't req
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3) So you can trust other people with managing your backups.
4) So when the government or a corporation decides you are in violation of the law or ToS, they can take you offline and deny you access to your own data without due process.
Re:Too big a change too soon (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if it were a problem, it's a problem they've solved on all the other OSes, because you can access the same Google apps on those. Investing in a ChromeOS machine provides you a set of advantages that are all present on lots of other machines, with none of those machines' other benefits. It'll have to sell on simplicity itself and a low device cost if it's to really work as a product.
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Also with none of those machines' drawbacks. You don't have to worry about compatibility issues, memory issues, hard drive space, hard drive crashes, backups, etc...
It'll have to sell on simplicity itself and a low device cost if it's to really work as a product
Uhh, that's exactly what they're doing. You plug it in, turn it on, it boots up instantly, and you go. And since it doesn't rely on all the extra hardware garbage that encumbers other computers, it's
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I'm sure the market's there, I'm just not sure that the people who would benefit from this device understand the cloud computing metaphor, and I worry that they won't be able to put a big enough price gap between ChromeOS and Windows 7 Starter netbooks.
Re:Too big a change too soon (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem that exists is your Mac, Windows or Linux box gives you the ability to 'change' to some clean state when you quit your browser.
Google wants to track you from power up to shutdown and Chrome is the first good attempt in that direction.
ChromeOS is like a browser that never gets its cookies cleaned and reverts to a cookie safe hardware state on booting.
A huge leap in tracking your habits.
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The problem with ChromeOS is it is trying to solve a problem them doesn't exist.
The problem that exists is that a fat OS with local apps is a bugger to maintain and keep up to date. Conceptually at least, the beauty of something like Chrome is that the footprint of what needs to ever be updated can be much, much smaller -- and hence, hopefully, need updating less frequently. Everything else is maintained remotely, so the user doesn't have to worry about it.
Application software upgrades "just happen" without the user having to do anything. (How many times have you performed a GMail upgr
Its all about who it is marketed to... (Score:2)
Why upload data into the cloud if you don't need to share it or have access to it on the move?
So perhaps the target market for ChromeOS devices, when they actually hit the market, will be people who need to share data and have access to it on the move?
I'd see it as a product for the corporate market, where keeping central control of all your users data, banishing CDs and memory sticks and preventing the serfs from installing games and fart apps on their devices would be a selling point. Someone leaves their ChromePad on a train? No worries - just lock their account and check the log to see if anyb
Maybe yes... (Score:2)
I'd see the natural home of Chrome OS as more on embedded devices - TVs, etc - rather than anything else.
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>> Surely the point is that Chrome OS allows Google and other devs to push the boundaries of what functionality can be contained within a web browser i.e. Chrome.
But is that a real problem? If the same functionality already exists in native applications on various platforms, is it really novel and does it matter that it can be "contained within a web browser"?
>> If they can demonstrate that hey, you can do facetube/music/pics etc quite happily within a browser then a Google user could get a ver
I think ChromeOS will be a success. (Score:2)
With the ARM notebooks coming, and the fact that it' is rumored to support virtual machines, the cloud, and many other features, ChromeOS is far from dead. As soon as the ARM based notebooks are powerful enough, and the cost is in the $200-300 range, I'll buy one.
And I predict many others will buy it as well. Saying ChromeOS is dead is like saying Kindle is dead because of the Ipad.
Re:I think ChromeOS will be a success. (Score:4, Informative)
Virtual Machines? I think you're thinking of "Chromoting" which I believe is a remote desktop-type feature.
I tried an HTML5 VNC client and it was as slow as molasses, though that's not a surprise because even on desktops I have found VNC to be slow. Hopefully Chrome Remoting will offer better performance.
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"Chromoting" is not a word and should never become a word.
What the GP was thinking of was using a network device running a thin client. While I don't agree with consumers willfully moving their personal data to the cloud, I can see a very good case for it in enterprise computing using a private "cloud".
Of course I remember the days when we casually talked about running our multiuser OS on one or mor
Re:I think ChromeOS will be a success. (Score:4, Insightful)
With the ARM notebooks coming, and the fact that it' is rumored to support virtual machines, the cloud, and many other features, ChromeOS is far from dead. As soon as the ARM based notebooks are powerful enough, and the cost is in the $200-300 range, I'll buy one.
Please explain why you would want an ARM net/notebook running ChromeOS over an ARM net/notebook running Android and able to do everything ChromeOS can do and then some.
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I would much rather have a Ubuntu based ARM netbook than a ChromeOS one. Just because an ARM netbook may be interesting.. Doesn't mean ChromeOS is.
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I don't even see the purpose of some netbook tailored distribution. You just install/compile what you might need and leave out the rest.
A tailored distribution would leave out things that won't fit on the device's internal display.
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ARM coming for years. I bought my first ARM powered notebook in 1992. :)
Who is the audience? (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on my experience, Chrome is a solution in search of a problem. I've had it running in a VM on my laptop. Seriously, if you're going to be springing for a low end notebook anyway, there's not much of a cost advantage to buying a ChromeOS machine and one that can run a full-featured OS. This might have made sense a few years ago when prices were higher, but a quick look around tells me I can get a refurbed notebook for around $200 that'll run Windows or Linux adequately to do anything Chrome does, and quite a bit more besides.
As a business tool, it's all but useless. Google provides no mechanism for installing even standard Linux VPN software which most companies provide for their remote employees. Or any other software, for that matter. Also, no company with a brain in their head is going to allow employees to be storing internal data on another company's servers. This might be a little more useful if a company could customize it to use internal servers rather than Google's, but as far as I've been able to tell, that option just doesn't exist.
As a striped down Linux distro, it isn't bad, but the lack of a mechanism for loading 3rd party software negates even that benefit. So you have to ask - who would use this, and why? There isn't even a cost advantage for the software. You can download a standard Linux distro that has all the features of Chrome, and a wealth of standard productivity tools to boot for the same price as Chrome - free.
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People keep saying this kind of thing. I remember predictions of the failure of the ipod too. And Ken Olsen from DEC said in 1977 "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer at his home."
Smart companies are going to dig into this kind of r&d to help meet the needs that we can't predict from where we are. If all a company does is make things that are obviously necessary or immediate successes, then we don't really make much progress.
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Ever heard of Google Apps? [google.com]
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Show me a business that's eager to keep their internal data on a 3rd party's *publicly accessable* server. That seems to me it'd be a little bit riskier than an isolated laptop getting lost. I've yet to work for a company that would even consider it.
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I really hope its got one top spec wireless setting.
If the employee can roll back the wireless networking to some old standard
The tablets killed the netbooks (Score:2)
He's right. But Google haven't spent 2 years and millions of dollars in a dead project just for fun.
Chrome was announced 2 years ago, when the tablet market was just a speculation, even the iPad was just a rumor at that time. But now, after millions iPads sold and the rise of competitor's tablets struggling for this new market, the netbooks -- the real Chrome OS target -- became irrelevant, or predicted to be dead in a 2-3 years from now.
The advent of the tablets killed the netbooks. So there will be no pla
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But for what it is worth, iPads are still crushing the competition, even in corporate IT [slashdot.org].
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The advent of the tablets killed the netbooks.
So with hundreds of millions of netbooks around the world and a few million iPads, and that means the netbook market is dead? Wow.
I'd certainly say it's probably saturated at this point, but netbooks have big advantages over tablets (most obviously a keyboard), as well as some disadvantages. I can't see myself replacing my netbook with a tablet any time soon.
Long live the cloud (Score:2)
Surprised it took so long (Score:2)
I suspect... (Score:2)
1. Serious 'dogfooding': Google's business is pushing 'web' and 'webapps' and whatnot, both to sell adsense impressions and to steal MS's lunch money to keep them from subsidizing their search arm until it becomes a real threat. Building an OS around this exclusively allows them to bundle in a few neat features(widespread single sign on without a corporate IT team, some intere
Most Techies miss the point (Score:3)
Secondly, saying ChromeOS and Android fit the same market is really, really dumb and misses the point completely. One is intended for the touchscreen only, while the other is geared for the traditional mouse and keyboard. These are significantly different UI approaches, targeting significantly different markets, and require more than just simple patching and hacking to go from one to the other. Even patching the OS's UI elements leaves all of the 3rd party applications with a disarray of usability between types of UI. Just look at Windows on the tablet as an example.
It's strange that no one seems to complain about Apple using iOS on its mobile devices, while using OS X on its computers, or that Microsoft uses Windows 7 on the computer and Windows Phone 7 on mobile devices. Instead, this is clearly the preferred approach. Yeah, Google is going the opposite direction, but I think it still applies - you are going between two radically different use cases and trying to go with a one-size-fits-all approach usually yields a one-size-sucks-for-all result. Granted, I'm sure we'll see a gradual merging of the code bases between ChromeOS and Android, but for either to remain a usable product, they need to be tailored for their specific uses.
Slashdot picks another "failure" (Score:3, Insightful)
So another article on Slashdot from techies confidently asserting that a new product will be a failure. Considering the record of similar attacks on iPod, iPhone, and iPad, this strikes me as the best evidence that it will succeed. Of course, the open system purists are inevitably up in arms over anything that is not general purpose or completely open to customization, and seem innately unable to comprehend just how small is the market segment for which this is a significant consideration.
So let's look at why it might succeed:
1. Cheap. It should work very well on very low end processors that chug when loaded down with a general purpose OS trying to multitask multiple applications. Power applications will run in the cloud. This could well become the dominant platform for the 3rd world as internet connectivity continues to rise.
2. Secure. I commonly have people coming to me complaining about their computer being "slow," and when I look it over, I find that it has been colonized by viruses and spyware. There is a large group of people who just want to browse the web, and don't feel like they should need to be computer security experts to keep their systems running smoothly. These may also be favored by businesses that don't want to deal with the potential security leaks due to people installing unapproved software on their PCs
3. Uniform. Every ChromeOS platform will be running essentially the same software, based upon the same browser. A company that delivers services through this platform will be relieved of a lot of support headaches arising from differences in user hardware or the presence of "nonstandard" software (see 2)
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Exactly. What is the difference?
And apparently I can't get normal tools in Android? No ssh in and make my project using gcc? What is up? Or am I clueless...
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No ssh in and make my project using gcc? What is up? Or am I clueless...
Yeah no kidding, I can't even use Visual C++ on this OS. What a turd...
Re:Is it that bad? (Score:5, Funny)
No ssh in and make my project using gcc? What is up? Or am I clueless...
Yeah no kidding, I can't even use Visual C++ on this OS. What a turd...
Worse, I wanted to print something and apparently there's no driver for my standard, HB (#2) pencil.
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Worse, I wanted to print something and apparently there's no driver for my standard, HB (#2) pencil.
PEBPAC - Problem exists between pencil and chair?
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It has linux as the underlying OS, so I would have thought you could get access to the machine like any linux box.
I have not rooted my droid, but I think you can get to some sort of shell.
From what I understand, you can't just get into a shell and start making all the standard tools, you have to do everything in that javlik stuff.
Or maybe I am wrong and just have not looked at it in quite a while. The NDK seems to have some gcc tools for native code development...
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Fragmentation on android is a myth.
Re:Bout time (Score:4, Insightful)
For a totally new definition of "myth" that means the opposite of what most people think it means.
It is one of the concerns for that platform - the fact that 1.6 devices are still shipping, and that the handsets out there all have various levels of hardware that are far more disparate than the small range of hardware on iOS devices makes this so.
It is a strength of the android platform in one sense, and a downside in others, just as iOS has the reverse stengths and weaknesses in this sense.
Add to this the problems with some android handset vendors locking down the ability to update to the newer android versions and you have a fragmentation issue.
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Won't happen. The attraction to handset makers is they get a reasonably solid base OS they can mess with how they like to create the firmware that'll run on their phones.
The disadvantage to consumers is that handset makers take a reasonably solid base OS them mess with it to create the firmware that runs on their phones.....
Re:Bout time (Score:5, Interesting)
* Really, really read-only. I've rooted the OS, but the phone has some sort of additional protection in hardware that monitors the system partition. If the OS does somehow manage to alter it, the phone immediatly resets itsself, and the bootloader copies the OS back over from a secure backup. HTC evidently is very determined to maintain control over their phones.
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Root you phone and you can remove that stuff with Titanium Backup, it's free in the market.
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Re:Bout time (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually for us it's a business concern. We were evaluating whether or not to allow Android device to connect to our corporate intranet and decided against it for that very reason. Not due to development related fragmentation issues, but rather OS fragmentation that makes security updates and vulnerabilities much more difficult to track and to resolve via updates. With vendors still pushing out 1.5, our corporate security was hesitant to endorse an OS with known vulnerabilities and no timely updates from the handset vendors.
With the iPhone, we can force users to upgrade to the latest OS version, and give them a time window to comply. With Android, it's not that easy. Blindly cutting off a specific version of the OS due to some vulnerability could potentially flood our help desk with calls regarding connection failures. Not feasible.
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> With vendors still pushing out 1.5
You mean "selling phones with"? Why not find a vendor "selling phones with" 1.6? Anyway, hardly anyone has 1.6 anymore. What is it now? Less than 17% have 1.6/1.7 combined. As a company, surely you'd choose a phone and stick with it, just like you can specify/mandate OS, browser etc. You're talking about checking email, right?
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No, he means pushing out. As in both selling devices with 1.5 and not offering any firmware updates to newer Android releases for them.
Re:Bout time (Score:4, Interesting)
How is this different than a Win/Mac laptop which could have god-knows-what installed it on it at any time?
Re:Bout time (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually for us it's a business concern. We were evaluating whether or not to allow Android device to connect to our corporate intranet and decided against it for that very reason./.../
With the iPhone, we can force users to upgrade to the latest OS version, and give them a time window to comply. /.../
Yes, we (as an internal IT company) used to think along those lines.. but to us, the iOS family itself is fast becoming the last straw to the perimeter security model, where we controlled what devices are permitted inside, and trusted them completely. This isn't going to fly much longer. First of all, without infeasible expansion in IT staffing, we are unable to match the quick evolution in the mobile segment: count on no more than 18 months' lifecycles for mobile devices, before being replaced by something which would have to be re-integrated with our standards and network security. Second, the devices aren't company provided any more: the ugly 'consumerization' word is rearing its equally ugly head. People (for now, top management and early adopters) want to bring their own devices, be they smartphones or laptops, to work. We've been fighting a holding action against that trend, mostly on the grounds of security, and to some extent supportability, but few of us think that battle can be ultimately won.
Instead of restricting end users' devices to perpetually out-dated models, our integration, provisioning and security model is tenatively moving towards focusing on their interfaces (communications protocols, information standards), and reducing trust towards devices. For the near future, we'll have to restrict access to confidential information to company-approved devices, and setup network malware and DoS protection as part of the open segments of our internal company networks. In the mid-to-longer term (2+ years), we hope to see increased maturity in virtualization, allowing us to push out a trusted virtual desktop/smartphone image, to which users can switch when sensitive information has to be processed. You can understand our happiness over this announcement [taranfx.com], happening a bit faster than we were expecting (even if they aren't at the product stage yet).
Old iPhones can be upgraded (Score:3)
You actually thought only that iphone have version numbers
Every iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 2, and iPod touch 3 can upgrade to iOS 4. The same can't be said of most Android phones and Android media players.
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You are failing to miss the point.
Actually,you missed the point. His complaint wasn't that you couldn't check for versions, it was that there was no upgrade path for fairly recent handsets running android 1.5, since the vendors are not offering an upgrade. Where as the iPhone modles he cited go back several years and can be upgraded to the current operating system. It's a lot more of you being blind, than him being a fanboy, dudeski. But this isn't the first time that an Antifanboi has made the mistake of reading what he wanted to read
"Connect to iTunes" vs. "Tough shit" (Score:3)
You are failing to miss the point.
Freudian slip much? ;-)
You still NEED TO CHECK if the device is running the correct VERSION
I agree. On both iOS and Android, an app needs to make sure that needed services are present and working. The difference comes in what message to display after the app has checked. On an iDevice, you check the iOS version, and if it is not new enough, say "Connect this device to iTunes to upgrade the system software." On an Android device, on the other hand, you check the version and then show "Wait until your contract runs out and buy a new Android device."
apple fanboy
I don't want iOS to win. I
To get Android users to re-buy hardware (Score:3)
Why do you think Android devices can't be upgraded or patched?
Because Google hasn't managed to coax Android phone makers, even those in OHA, to make Android upgrades available. Carriers and device makers have been less than forthcoming in pushing out operating system upgrades for existing devices, instead preferring to treat the new operating system's features as bullet points to sell replacement hardware.
In fact, if it couldn't be upgraded that would be better from a corporate standpoint because it would be a consistent platform.
Every iDevice sold since the App Store began operation in the iPhone 3G/iPod touch 2 days can be upgraded to iOS 4. For this reason, app developers can more or less
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The finding were more OS specific, not hardware specific, although that too raised some minor questions about support.
The current model we use under the 'user supplied' mobile device program, requires each hardware model be approved for use by corporate security. Previously all hardware allowed to connect was company supplied but they relaxed that policy when the iPhone came out, and also for the iPad. The issue found with Android related to security updates. Although vulnerabilities were being reported for
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Not the actual Android developers, for example, no.
Fragmentation: Android Market vs. AppsLib (Score:2)
Only Apple and their fans complain about Android's supposed fragmentation.
And anyone who wants to sell apps to people who happen not to have a smartphone. With Apple, one can carry a dumbphone for calls and an iPod touch for App Store apps and save money by not having to pay AT&T for 24 months of $70/mo voice and data. Google, on the other hand, requires a device to have most of the features of a phone, including a camera and a GPS, before Google will let the device onto its Market. This fragments the platform into Android Market (for phones) and the much smaller AppsLib (for
Re:This guy is an idiot, it's pathetic. (Score:5, Informative)
from wikipedia "Paul Buchheit is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He was the creator and lead developer of Gmail. He developed the original prototype of Google AdSense as part of his work on Gmail. He also suggested the company's now-famous motto "Don't be evil" in a 2000 meeting on company values.[1]"
Hmm, why the hate.. It sounds like he's done some stuff.. What have you done?
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I'm the downhill tumble and roll champ, king of the toad finders, premier burper, sodbuster and worm scout first order, and generalissimo of the mud and mayhem society. How about yourself?
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