Google Announces Google Chrome Operating System

[NAG]

Yeah, and if we took all the pretty pictures off all the text would be faster.

Silverlight is what allows Netflix to stream to a computer. I think Hulu uses Flash. Yeah, they use a lot of horsepower on computers, but it's WELL WORTH IT.

You seem to be confused as to the alternatives out there. Just because you are ignorant of the alternatives doesn't mean they don't exist. Flash and Silverlight are resource hogs, you can justify it all you want but it doesn't change the fact that there are more efficient ways out there. Educate yourself before you go out and use sarcasm.

 

[iAlexG]

I use the gmail service but only because I can't be bothered to change everything to an new one. Google has gone downhill.

 

[EmperorDarius]

I use the gmail service but only because I can't be bothered to change everything to an new one.

There's not much of an alternative out there. Gmail remains the best compared to Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, GMX, Libero etc...in terms of receiving speed and spam filtering.

 

[AidenShaw]

Do you want me to rubbish about how HP's bulky plastic and the glassy, slimy Aero intrudes and may distract corporate users and thus "un-professional", and how Aqua as well as machine's sleek design blends in with the office environment and encourages productivity?

Well I don't. I've had one too many Mac vs. PC debates where arguments are based on qualitative judgements. If you want people to "back up [their] claims" you better back up yours. Consumer satisfaction is a good place to start.

I was referring to Apple's lack of hardware that can handle heavy duty compute-intensive workloads.

The Mac Pro is the only powerful system in the lineup, and it's too expensive and overkill for most users -- not to mention inconvenient to carry around.

Where's a quad core laptop and desktop from Apple? How about a laptop with really capable graphics (Quadro with 512MiB or 1GiB VRAM) and dual disks?

And, by the way, select the "slate" theme in Aero and everything's in shades of charcoal - very professional.

 

[twoodcc]

i'm really glad to see this. looking forward to seeing what this will actually look like. i hope it's really fast

 

[Anuba]

If you want people to "back up [their] claims" you better back up yours. Consumer satisfaction is a good place to start.

I'm not sure it is. Comparing HP and Dell with Apple in terms of consumer satisfaction is pretty useless since Apple only makes expensive premium computers that simply must be satisfactory, anything else would be borderline criminal. HP and Dell make everything from $400 entry-level junk to professional workstations. If you compare satisfaction with Dell/HP >= $2,000 machines to >= $2,000 you won't find much of a difference, and whatever dissatisfaction there is can probably mostly be attributed to Vista, which neither manufacturer has any control over.

The point AidenShaw wanted to make re: "increasingly un-professional" is that Apple has shifted focus from the needs of creative professionals to the "needs" of prosumers. The glossy screens. The limited connectivity. Form over function. Professionals often have specific requirements that go a little beyond the default feature set. One wants a 15" laptop with a matte 1680x1050 screen, another wants one with eSATA, a third wants a numerical keyboard, a fourth wants both SmartCard and ExpressCard, a fifth wants a quad laptop with dual hard drives... with Apple you don't get to say what you want, you're told what you want. You want 2 USB ports (two! My grandma needs more than that), a glossy 1440x900 screen and an SD card reader. You get to pick between two CPUs, 4 or 8 GB RAM, and HDD or SSD. That's it. The number of options are fewer than you get when you build a cheap netbook. That's not merely un-professional, it's aggressively anti-professional. Clearly Apple don't want anything more to do with the creative pros who kept them afloat through the dark years. Enough of those picky deviants and their pesky "needs".

And, by the way, select the "slate" theme in Aero and everything's in shades of charcoal - very professional.

Yeah, but then the white goo they put behind the window title text to add some contrast stands out even more. I hated that goo since the first day I saw screenshots of Vista. The only way to get rid of it is to select the "Frost" theme and pull color intensity up to full, but then the taskbar becomes so jarringly bright that the white text on it becomes unreadable. The best I could come up with to diminish the effect of the white puke around the title text was to use the darkest theme possible and change the text color to white, like this:

 

[iGuardian]

(two! My grandma needs more than that)

How many USB's do you really need on a Laptop? On my desktop, it's one for the iPhone, one for the Keyboard/Mouse. Sometimes another for a printer.

And you don't need either the phone or Printer on all the time so. . .

 

[Wikinerd]

I was referring to Apple's lack of hardware that can handle heavy duty compute-intensive workloads.

The Mac Pro is the only powerful system in the lineup, and it's too expensive and overkill for most users -- not to mention inconvenient to carry around.

Where's a quad core laptop and desktop from Apple? How about a laptop with really capable graphics (Quadro with 512MiB or 1GiB VRAM) and dual disks?

And, by the way, select the "slate" theme in Aero and everything's in shades of charcoal - very professional.

That would depend on the chipset. Which is still in rumors (see other thread).

(And none of the Apple laptops have Quad Core and "capable" graphics because those things need a monster sized machine, which would go against Apple's design philosophy—plain, sleek, simple)

(I mean "glassy" and "slimy" as in "unnecessary" UI such as transparancy where it is not needed,imo, ofc, Macs have only just enough to not to be rough on the eye—apart from the dock, but that doesn't distract, either.)

 

[geoffreak]

Why Google’s Chrome OS Will Die

 

[Goona]

Windows 7, the saviour of the Windows world is ready to descend on us.

 

[AidenShaw]

How many USB's do you really need on a Laptop?

Thumbdrive, mouse, external HD, card reader or camera.

I've had all 4 filled quite a few times.

 

[Anuba]

How many USB's do you really need on a Laptop? On my desktop, it's one for the iPhone, one for the Keyboard/Mouse. Sometimes another for a printer.

And you don't need either the phone or Printer on all the time so. . .

Well, let's say you're a musician who needs one USB port for your MIDI controller keyboard, one for the copy protection dongle for your software (Cubase etc) and one for your external audio interface. And then you want to plug in a Logitech mouse receiver because you hate the Bluetooth lag, and you also want one empty port for stuff you plug in occasionally -- your iPhone, a Flash memory stick, a card reader for your bank, your digital camera etc. What do you do?

I can see the comeback now...

1) Musicians shouldn't work on laptops, get a Mac Pro

2) Get a USB 2.0 hub (right, because with a laptop what you really want is to be tethered to a powered hub with its own power adapter)

3) Scrap your familiar working environment (Cubase) and buy an unfamiliar one (Logic -- it's dongle free now)

All professional PC notebooks I've dealt with have had 4 USB ports. My MBP 17" has 3, but they sit so ridiculously close together that when I want to insert a flash memory stick, I have to pull out the USB device in the port next to it.

 

[Wikinerd]

I'm not sure it is. Comparing HP and Dell with Apple in terms of consumer satisfaction is pretty useless since Apple only makes expensive premium computers that simply must be satisfactory, anything else would be borderline criminal. HP and Dell make everything from $400 entry-level junk to professional workstations. If you compare satisfaction with Dell/HP >= $2,000 machines to >= $2,000 you won't find much of a difference, and whatever dissatisfaction there is can probably mostly be attributed to Vista, which neither manufacturer has any control over.

While that is true, he was talking about how 7 will win back switchers. Which 7's author, Microsoft, has control over.

The point AidenShaw wanted to make re: "increasingly un-professional" is that Apple has shifted focus from the needs of creative professionals to the "needs" of prosumers. The glossy screens. The limited connectivity. Form over function. Professionals often have specific requirements that go a little beyond the default feature set. One wants a 15" laptop with a matte 1680x1050 screen, another wants one with eSATA, a third wants a numerical keyboard, a fourth wants both SmartCard and ExpressCard, a fifth wants a quad laptop with dual hard drives... with Apple you don't get to say what you want, you're told what you want. You want 2 USB ports (two! My grandma needs more than that), a glossy 1440x900 screen and an SD card reader. You get to pick between two CPUs, 4 or 8 GB RAM, and HDD or SSD. That's it. The number of options are fewer than you get when you build a cheap netbook. That's not merely un-professional, it's aggressively anti-professional. Clearly Apple don't want anything more to do with the creative pros who kept them afloat through the dark years. Enough of those picky deviants and their pesky "needs".

While I agree with the matte/glossy screen thing, the other ones are just not consistent with Apple's principle of being sleek and simple. Now that FireWire is back with the 13" MBP for faster transfers, everything is covered except for the ExpressCard slot. Forgive me for being design conscious, but an ExpressCard slot can be compensated for using firewire + adapter and an actual one on a Unibody MBP would, first, seriously weaken the structure of the notebook (i.e. the shell IS the structure, so a hole in it would weaken that), and second, would look ugly. As in seriously ugly.

One wants a 15" laptop with a matte 1680x1050 screen, another wants one with eSATA, a third wants a numerical keyboard, a fourth wants both SmartCard and ExpressCard, a fifth wants a quad laptop with dual hard drives...

This illustrates the complaints out there... So many things, you cannot have all of them. USB and Firewire is therefore chosen, so that it accommodates quite a lot of things... With the exception of the extreme end of things...

(for the matte screen, have you noticed the screen's design? It's ONE piece of glass that stretches over the bezel, so matte would really be UGLY.)

 

[chaosconan]

Google Chrome OS?
It's just going to be slim down version of Debian under covers.

 

[Wikinerd]

Thumbdrive, mouse, external HD, card reader or camera.

I've had all 4 filled quite a few times.

Well, let's say you're a musician who needs one USB port for your MIDI controller keyboard, one for the copy protection dongle for your software (Cubase etc) and one for your external audio interface. And then you want to plug in a Logitech mouse receiver because you hate the Bluetooth lag, and you also want one empty port for stuff you plug in occasionally -- your iPhone, a Flash memory stick, a card reader for your bank, your digital camera etc. What do you do?

I can see the comeback now...

1) Musicians shouldn't work on laptops, get a Mac Pro

2) Get a USB 2.0 hub (right, because with a laptop what you really want is to be tethered to a powered hub with its own power adapter)

3) Scrap your familiar working environment (Cubase) and buy an unfamiliar one (Logic -- it's dongle free now)

All professional PC notebooks I've dealt with have had 4 USB ports.

The number of USB ports you want on a notebook is the minimum you should have. Any more is extra weight as well as wasted energy as well as money. And that minimum is — you guessed it, the time when you're on the move and cannot carry a hub. So, will you use a mouse when on the move? Unlikely, hard to find a parallel surface to use a mouse on... Thumbdrive? maybe. That's 1. External HD? Probably not... Using an HD while moving is a bad idea... Card reader? No. Camera. No. That's 1 so far. So that should leave a second for anything extra that I haven't mentioned.

And when you're working with a notebook on a desk, use a hub—because on a desk you've got space to allow for compromises.

 

[Anuba]

Forgive me for being design conscious, but an ExpressCard slot can be compensated for using firewire + adapter and an actual one on a Unibody MBP would, first, seriously weaken the structure of the notebook (i.e. the shell IS the structure, so a hole in it would weaken that), and second, would look ugly. As in seriously ugly.

Right, and that illustrates the problem with Apple painting themselves into the "pretty" corner. While professionals may be design conscious too, they can't let that compromise the functionality they need to get their job done, and "ugly" is one of the least valid of all arguments against functionality.

(for the matte screen, have you noticed the screen's design? It's ONE piece of glass that stretches over the bezel, so matte would really be UGLY.)

Have you noticed that the 17" model is already available with a matte screen and that it's not particularly ugly at all? And again, your reasoning is backwards. If the obstacle is a piece of glass that stretches over the bezel, then don't make a piece of glass that stretches over the bezel, that way you won't have any problems with adding a matte option. Make a normal screen, the kind that worked fine on every other MacBook Pro and PowerBook before this one, without anyone remarking on how "ugly" it was.

 

[cohibadad]

Chrome OS. Could be interesting. Creating a new OS isn't a small task. That patent minefield is vast. Doesn't sound like they plan a slim Linux distro. Very Interesting.

 

[Wikinerd]

Right, and that illustrates the problem with Apple painting themselves into the "pretty" corner. While professionals may be design conscious too, they can't let that compromise the functionality they need to get their job done, and "ugly" is one of the least valid of all arguments against functionality.

Are you saying they cannot use a hub?

And most of the things that used to use ExpressCard slot either uses SD or USB or Firewire... Care to point out a few non-ancient products that still don't?

You always have to make compromises in products like these, and you can take any product out there and scrutinize it until it holds no value. But in the end it's still the same to other people.

PS. ExpressCard-specific hardware are rarer than you think...
http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/5304

PPS.And the structure of the notebook is important, too...

Have you noticed that the 17" model is already available with a matte screen and that it's not particularly ugly at all? And again, your reasoning is backwards. If the obstacle is a piece of glass that stretches over the bezel, then don't make a piece of glass that stretches over the bezel, that way you won't have any problems with adding a matte option. Make a normal screen, the kind that worked fine on every other MacBook Pro and PowerBook before this one, without anyone remarking on how "ugly" it was.

I actually think the 17" matte would look ugly...

While adding an extra bezel would bring the matte back, the presence of the bezel would mean an extra part that can affect the machine; and also makes it harder to clean...

Anyhow there are third party options if that's the only problem that people have with the notebooks...

PS. Pro-visual artists use glossy. Glossy screens tend to have more accurate coloring and a sharper image, but may oversaturate (haven't used it, don't have 1st hand experience)

PPS. Glossy screens shouldn't oversaturate though, theoretically "The LCD/LEDs (behind the glass) is producing some colors at some brightness, the screen covering (be it gloss or matte) by nature of how light works is going to diffuse the light. A glossy screen is just smooth plastic or glass whereas a matte screen has a variegated surface which intentionally diffuses the light. By diffusing the light from the outside, you avoid glare. But unfortunately it's also going to have some affect on the light coming OUT of the screen as well. So that light will also soften and diffuse as well. Glossy screens have a minimum of affect on the color and light, but at the cost of having glare."

 

[chaosconan]

Google said it’s working with computer makers to introduce a number of netbooks next year, without identifying any of the companies. The Chrome OS will be open-source, meaning the program code will be open to developers, Google said. The software will work on top of the Linux operating system.

Now I'm confused. The software will work on TOP of the linux operating system.

It sounds more like a application framework similar to Microsoft .net framework than anything else.

Light weight linux operating system with a web application framework and not an operating system.

They should call it Google Chrome .NET and not Google Chrome OS

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTd2k.YdQZ.Y

 

[Wikinerd]

Now I'm confused. The software will work on TOP of the linux operating system.

It sounds more like a application framework similar to Microsoft .net framework than anything else.

Light weight linux operating system with a web application framework and not an operating system.

They should call it Google Chrome .NET and not Google Chrome OS

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTd2k.YdQZ.Y

Google's blog says it's on top of a "Linux kernel"... Hope that clears things up.

 

[PikachuMan]

Now I'm confused. The software will work on TOP of the linux operating system.

It sounds more like a application framework similar to Microsoft .net framework than anything else.

Light weight linux operating system with a web application framework and not an operating system.

They should call it Google Chrome .NET and not Google Chrome OS

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTd2k.YdQZ.Y

Okay, let me try to explain it.

What you probably think about as "the linux operating system" is more properly called "GNU/Linux". Where "Linux" refers to the kernel, and everything else is from the GNU operating system (GNU being short for "GNU is Not Unix").

Linux is a kernel. It is just a part of an operating system, not the whole thing.

Here is a quick note from gnu.org which should explain it better.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

 

[chaosconan]

Google's blog says it's on top of a "Linux kernel"... Hope that clears things up.

Now that clears things up. Another linux distro. Simple. My next question is who's window manager are they going to use (gnome or kde) or are they going to write their own?

 

[Wikinerd]

Now that clears things up. Another linux distro. Simple. My next question is who's window manager are they going to use (gnome or kde) or are they going to write their own?

Write their own. Probably Chrome-themed.

 

[chadder007]

everything is always circular.

dumb terminal to pc back to dumb terminal 2009.

True....and some companies are already bumping up the specs on Thin Clients because they can't handle graphics well.

 

[chaosconan]

Okay, let me try to explain it.

What you probably think about as "the linux operating system" is more properly called "GNU/Linux". Where "Linux" refers to the kernel, and everything else is from the GNU operating system (GNU being short for "GNU is Not Unix").

Linux is a kernel. It is just a part of an operating system, not the whole thing.

Here is a quick note from gnu.org which should explain it better.

I understand what your saying but thats not what the article said.
"The software will work on TOP of the linux operating system"

These words came directly from the article.