“Verizon Wireless is working with Google Inc. on a tablet computer, the carrier’s chief executive, Lowell McAdam, said Tuesday, as the company endeavors to catch up with iPad host AT&T Inc. in devices that connect to wireless networks. The work is part of a deepening relationship between the largest U.S. wireless carrier by subscribers and Google, which has carved out a space in mobile devices with its Android operating system. Verizon Wireless last year heavily promoted the Motorola Droid, which runs Google’s software.”
ChromeOS? Haven’t heard anything about it since the big debut.
Wouldn’t “debut” imply a product? Thus far it’s more vapor.
Who would have thought that the first actual product announcement would come with Nokia and Intel’s recently announced Meego rather than Chrome?
Chrome is a web appliance OS – no local apps at all. I wonder if a market really exists for such a tablet? Interesting.
Well…
-> There’s a market for the iPhoneOS, and it’s closely related to its apps it seems.
-> With the exception of games, most iphoneOS apps have only little functionality or get everything from network data. They could be implemented in Javascript + HTML5 and still get acceptable performance. Most non-3D games could be made in Flash with similar results (Yes, Flash is a simple and powerful tool for game dev, put under good hands it can do wonders. There are many example of creative use of flash on Kongregate and http://www.flashphysicsgames.com )
-> ChromeOS does Javascript + HTML5 + Flash.
So unless I made a mistake somewhere in this reasoning, there’s a market for ChromeOS, as long as it can prove that it does something better that iPhoneOS ^^
Edited 2010-05-12 15:35 UTC
You could be right. Certainly I do a lot of my computing on the web – though not all. With my netbook in the family room, though – yep, mostly web.
I don’t think I could accept the “no local apps” limit, but then, I’m a geek who likes to keep his options open.
I guess the proof is in the sales figures. All we need now is a Chrome-based tablet, and then we’ll know!
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I think exactly the same way. I spend most of my computer time on the internet, and the local things that I do could all be handled in a cloud-ish way using virtualization and SSH, but I want to keep local capabilities. If I was to quote just one reason, it would be keeping control over the programs which I can run and the data which they operate on.
However, some comments on iPhoneOS-related stories tell me that a lot of people do not care about that kind of freedom and safety. Cloud precisely predates that kind of users, not people like you and me.
Oh, and about Flash games, just wanted to share some masterpiece which I discovered yesterday and which keeps me thinking that online gaming is totally possible : http://machinarium.net/demo/
It’s a point-and-click adventure game which has OK performance and has the polish and content quality of a commercial game (which it indeed is, full version costs $20. I consider buying it). In fact, I’d even dare to say that it’s easily worth much more than 4x the price of a lot of gameloft/popcap games which sell so well in the mobile world…
Edited 2010-05-13 17:19 UTC