Google Adds Tablet UI Elements To Chrome OS Betas 50
Apparently current builds
identify themselves as CrOS, elements have been giving more whitespace to ease finger based navigation, and an on-screen keyboard is now built in. This only adds further to the questions about the positioning of ChromeOS vs Android: developers probably don't want to work on both.
The real question (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sure, you can click with your left hand or your right hand. ;-)
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Middle Click FTW (Score:1)
The More The Merrier! (Score:3)
Google has some pretty smart people, and I'm sure they've got something up their sleeves. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up sharing common APIs between platforms so recompiling (perhaps with a bit of tweaking) using separate make files will let developers work on both platforms (as close to) simultaneously as possible.
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Programmers already have to split efforts between Android and Honeycomb; the future will add ChromeOS, Chrome, and GoogleTV. So yes, Google desperately needs a convergence plan.
There's no difference between Chrome and Chrome OS, from a developer's perspective. And since all it runs are webapps, anything you write for Chrome or Chrome OS would also work fine on any other platform.
There's really no need to consolidate the different projects (except Gingerbread/Honeycomb), although different Google people have said that Android and CrOS will be merged at some point.
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So minor examples are irrelevant, apparently...
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If you're not stealing market share from yourself, someone else is.
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There you have it — market share is theft!
WebOS vs. ChromeOS (Score:2)
Speaking of which: does anybody who's in the know, know what major differences there are between WebOS and ChromeOS?
Also, since this looks to be an otherwise quiet /. story, would this be an appropriate place to hash out the pronunciation of OS ("Oss" vs. "Oh-Ess"?), since the word's going to now be put in front of consumers? For people who say "Oh-Ess", did you pronounce MS-DOS as "EmmEssDeeOhEss"? DR-DOS "Doctor Doss"?
Opinions on SQL (Sequel/EssQueElle) also welcomed.
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IMHO, a little inconsistency adds spice to life. I'm glad not everyone is like me (as is, most likely, the rest of the world).
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I was really taken aback the first time I heard "GUID" [wikipedia.org] pronounced as "goo-id".
Some people seem to pronounce URL as "Earl". I though everybody said "You-Are-Elle". I guess there are also some that say "Yurl".
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Also, since this looks to be an otherwise quiet /. story, would this be an appropriate place to hash out the pronunciation of OS ("Oss" vs. "Oh-Ess"?)...
"Oh-Ess". I use "Oss" for, well, OSS.
EmEssDoss, but "Microsoft Office". Usually drop it altogether for "Windows $FOO"
EssQueElle, but I've never used it.
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It won't be hard to add Android libraries to ChromeOS for compatibility.
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The obvious answer is, if you develop for all these different platforms you are probably doing it wrong (unless you have a specialized app). You probably should just use HTML/CSS/JS and something like PhoneGap.
I'm sure some kind of 'webapps' based on webtechnologies will be supported for ChromeOS. :-)
That way you can also target the iPhone, iPad, HP WebOS and everything else with the same codebase.
Users love web apps. (Score:1)
Developers tried doing that for iPhone. What they learned was: users fucking hate web apps.
Google.com, Facebook.com, .... They are "web apps" !
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From what I understand there's nothing to "compile" in ChromeOS in the traditional sense. The OS really only runs web apps and browser extensions.
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It's going to support Google's nacl technology, which is specially compiled x86 code (and with pinnacle in the future, cross platform llvm bitcode).
Re:The More The Merrier! (Score:4, Interesting)
Google has some pretty smart people, and I'm sure they've got something up their sleeves.
Not this time. ChromeOS was targeted at netbooks while they were the "next big thing" and Android was set to go for phones. ChromeOS never made it out the door and Android has expanded to tablets (the current "big thing"). ChromeOS is walking dead which will eventually get chopped.
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I would buy a chrome book for a similar price to a net book.
(trading a real OS for 100MB free data/month).
The ability to buy day passes is kind of nice too.
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Exactly. Until everyone's Internet connection is as fast as the link between a CPU and its RAM, and until Web pages can be designed to take advantage of the most recent advances in GPUs, there will ALWAYS be the desire for the speed that native apps bring.
I have absolutely no idea why Google is still going forward with the idea of Chrome OS. If they really think there's a market for an OS with no apps except a browser, they can always release a stripped down version of Android. Chrome OS was announced almos
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>> Chrome OS was announced almost two years ago (July 2009) and if they could have shipped something quickly it might have been worthwhile (and for fuck's sake, how hard is it?[...])
The reason is very simple: The iPad. They were probably ready to deploy sometime in 2010, but then the iPad was released and changed the game.
>> [...]but I can't think of a single reason for it to exist today.
Exactly. ChromeOS was announced back when the tech pundits claimed that the plain-ol' Web and netbooks wer
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I think you have it backwards. Google is open when it suits their purposes. And when it suits their purposes, their "openness" will end.
I think they're is going to get all of the tablet folk to commit to Android, then ship their own superior tablet based on Chrome, upon which they'll drop Android development like a hot potato, leaving all of the suckers gasping for air and wondering what the hell just happened.
Don't forget Schmidt was on Apple's board, saw the iPhone, and then snuck out and developed Androi
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Google has some pretty smart people, and I'm sure they've got something up their sleeves.
I wouldn't count on that. Google has its share of flat out failures, some of which are kept on perennial life support for no good reason.
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Coward much?
"CrOS Touch" (Score:5, Informative)
The summary sort of misses the point about "current builds identifying themselves as CrOS".
The pertinent bit of the article is:
The browser now reports itself as "CrOS Touch" for sites that have specific touchscreen elements.
... meaning that a web site can know that it's dealing with a browser with a touch interface, and present a UI to suit.
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More like hedging bets - remember that Google wants to sell ads and to put those ads everywhere. First in apps (whether it be Android, iOS, etc - free apps supported by AdMob sold ads), websites, and now in their cloud-based OS.
If their Android tablet takes off, great. If their OS takes off, even better. If one fails, no big deal, they have fingers in the other pot as well
Here's a link to a more detailed article. (Score:3, Informative)
Had Google, not HP, bought Palm... (Score:2)
webos has shipping devices, an OS roadmap for a forthcoming tablet and a community. The App model is also similar - html frameworks supplemented by a native C API.
Instead of pumping money into a stillborn platform, google should just focus on wooing pre3 and veer users with retrofitted chromeos services for webos. Cloud revenues...