Android, Chrome OS, It’s Just Clicked

After a discussion about Apple’s new iPad with a friend about the reasons why it’s going to be successful and why nothing I’ve seen will match it, I started to think. I say nothing I’ve seen will match, thats not strictly true, nothing I’ve seen that has been physically made will match it. However concepts . . . . Maybe not.

Lets consider the following:

• Apple iPad (Obcourse)
• HP Slate (Windows 7)
• Chrome OS (Touch Concepts)
• Microsofts Courier Concept

What the hell does all this have to do with Android, Chrome OS or anything?

Apple has proven itself with the iPhone, UI is beautiful, the gestures were pretty perfect out the box. The iPad will most likely have these features, will work better than Sony’s e-Book Reader (From the little I’ve played with it) and developers will be jumping over anything to launch app’s on the thing, giving any user a great deal of things to maintain their interest.

HP Slate, well . . . . its Windows 7 on a big touch screen, now I’m sure HP will add a lovely set of programs to use for e-book reading and maybe a photo gallery (judging from the video here http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/the-hp-slate/) But what about every other application you open on it? Optimised for the HP Slate? No probably not, will developers get a lovely SDK to use? Probably not, and lets be honest, it’s Microsoft, after their fail with Windows Vista, a new release of Windows 7 may of fixed things, but are they really ready for the touchscreen revolution?

Chrome OS Touch Screen concept, if you haven’t already seen it, then check out the video here - go on -http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/02/google-mum-on-chrome-os-touch-support-chromium-devs-show-us-how/ I’ll be honest and say it’s nothing too exciting. After attending a Chrome Event held by Google (Big thanks to Google for letting me come along) there was a lot of talk on HTML 5 that  made me think that perhaps Chrome OS has still some way to go before it is anywhere ready for release. Just small things like web apps being allowed to save files to a computer filesystem not yet implemented in Chrome browser. This isn’t Google’s idea of everything in the cloud, but for a netbook running Chrome OS I think they’ll give in and settle to slowly change users to the cloud and give the option to store files on the filesystem. Now consider the next little video shown below:

This is beautiful, it has limited use from the default apps (Thats fine with me if it works this damn well) but I can’t see Microsoft making something work so smoothly. Don’t get me wrong, if they managed to make this I will eat my own words and buy one from the nearest PC World (well maybe not PC World). But more realistically, it would be Google with a manufacturer of their choice. However Chrome OS, the first computer Web OS, would that suite this device? I mean I want journals, ripping photos and info from websites, take photos, changing between apps running on the 2 screens. Well Chrome OS could work, but lets consider Android? I’ve always been a believer that Android will never get put on a netbook (or at least a popular netbook) but does this count as a netbook?

My main point is Android has the great ability of Intents, linking programs together, I can drag and drop images, opening intents when the user drags and drops a photo or other data. Programs can be replaced with other alternatives, such as the default keyboard, notepad, calendar, it just seems like there is a lot of hardware and native app features that need to be used to implement this kind of interface, the kind of interface that browsers alone can’t create.

All in all, Android should be implemented where hardware and a more customised interface needs to taken advantage of, Chrome OS should be used on devices where the web is near enough the sole purpose of the hardwares use. I could be wrong, I’m only speculating, but I have a stronger opinion of the divide between the applications of Android and Chrome OS after this little thought process.

What are your thoughts?

Orig Photo: https://flic.kr/p/9G6BWd