Google launching a Chrome OS tablet on Verizon, goes on sale November 26 | Hacker News Reader

Google launching a Chrome OS tablet on Verizon, goes on sale November 26

downloadsquad.com

28 pointsFlemlord34 comments

So an OS that was originally intended for netbooks, before it's even released, has switched targets to the newly formed iPad-like tablet market? Suspect, but not unbelievable.

On another note, It still impresses me just how quickly the market was anticipating, repulsed, and then rapidly copying the iPad. I genuinely wonder if Google had targeted the iPad form factor first (with Android or Chrome OS) if they would have a fraction of the same success in bringing tablets to the masses.

Why is every tablet assumed to be inspired by the iPad? All sorts of companies have been creating tablets for a long time.

Sure Apple apparently made a nice one. But it is not only Apple's genius, it is also the the progress of technology that made it possible (faster, more power efficient CPUs, better batteries, better displays...).

One big thing hindering other companies' tablets was probably Windows, which presumably just sucked too much. There were attempts with Linux tablets, but again, the sleekness wasn't there yet (in the meantime, as with the hardware, things have improved).

So now Google has their own OS, so they can make a new attempt at creating a nice tablet without Windows suckage. They are not just copying Apple.

Mass acceptance indicating a strong and growing market. Should also point out it's as important what they chose to leave out as it is what they left in, not just the convergence of technologies making it possible.

The supporters of history rarely get the credit for the work they put in. It is the person who was there when the final blow was struck that gets most of the credit.

Apple shouldn't get all the credit for creating tablet computers. They should get credit for creating the first tablet that most people actually wanted to buy. If you want to ignore the influence of the iPad on the current market and overall design of the tablets we're going to see, you're being painfully myopic.

I think coming tablets can piggyback on the Apple hype machine that created the demand. As for the design, I am not so sure: they are tablets. The design is basically inbuilt in the name (very likely flat rectangles).

Why bother, what does ChromeOS do that Android doesn't for a tablet?

Agreed. I have a high amount of interest in buying an Android tablet (2nd gen of course, let someone else beta test your bugs out), and next to zero interest in a ChromeOS tablet. Android is a known quantity.

One major difference is the update pattern. Chrome OS silently and constantly updates itself so that you will always be running 100% modern software. I hear more complaints about being stuck on old versions of Android than anything else about that OS.

Chrome OS does serve a different purpose. Being so tightly integrated with the browser will definitely give you a better Web experience than you could ever have on Android. Then again, Android has a platform for running applications natively.

What I'm trying to say is...they're different. Maybe you don't want one, and that's fine. But I suspect there are a lot of people who will.

> One major difference is the update pattern. Chrome OS silently and constantly updates itself so that you will always be running 100% modern software. I hear more complaints about being stuck on old versions of Android than anything else about that OS.

Over the air updates are possible on Android post 1.6?. The problem is that the carriers have their own special requirements, so no one runs a stock image, and there are way too many different phones for HTC / Motorola to just whip up and ship changes out for so quickly.

Cheaper?

How would/could it be cheaper?

Dunno... of the top of my head: no need for much local storage, no need for much GPU power (I don't think that's the market they are aiming it at), and stuff like that.

But it's just a guess.

Yeah, well, what does the iPad do that the Android doesn't? The game is not, and has never been, about feature exhaustion. Slashdot famously wrote about the iPod [http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257], "No wireless. Less memory than the Nomad. Lame." And we all know where that went.

Apple built their house by making a lack of (what people thought were very) important features cool. ChromeOS is basically a browser with legs, which is certainly a step in that direction. So maybe the fight is not off.

ChromeOS is probably worse for a tablet than Android. Imagine if the iPad only shipped with Safari and no other native apps. The uproar would be incredible.

ChromeOS is trying to solve some of the last limitations of the web as an app development platform so that it doesn't need native apps.

I would be surprised if this thing didn't support webcam/microphone access through the new HTML Devices API as well as WebGL. With Local Storage, Workers, and the other HTML5 APIs, ChromeOS will be the first time someone presents the browser as a application development platform on par with iOS and the other native platforms.

This is incredibly exciting to me... it's a push back towards the "write once, run anywhere" spirit of the web. Not all developers want to write a web app and two or three mobile apps just to get good market coverage.

My hope is that Google uses ChromeOS to start building a stable of apps built with web technologies that can compete with the native app stores, that they slowly replace the Android Market with it, and that Apple and Microsoft will support these new web platform technologies in their mobile browsers, and 5 years from now, the web is again the only app platform that matters.

I agree that HTML5 is an awesome spec. With iOS, HTML5 developers can access native hardware like Location APIs (GPS), cameras, etc, however, the spec is still in it's infancy. Remember when Netscape was supposed to replace the desktop and Microsoft started to get scared? HTML5 has the potential to do that, and I personally would love to see it start to replace thick apps, but we're still a few years away from being able to do everything on the web.

Total evidence offered for YAGTR (Yet another Google tablet rumour): 0. Plus given that Google just got out of the phone handset to consumer business (because, frankly, they suck at any product that might require end user support), how likely are try to jump into another end user hardware sale/support setup?

The article talks about a potential HTC-built device sold by Verizon. Where does it talk about an end-user sale?

In the comments, from the author...

> Lee Mathews said 10:50AM on 8-18-2010

> No, my source tells me it's Google hardware -- like the N1.

I'm assuming handset support in the US is the same as the EU, where for smart phones, you normally deal with the manufacturer, not the carrier ( i.e. If my iPhone or iPad breaks, I call Apple - not O2).

> I'm assuming handset support in the US is the same as the EU, where for smart phones, you normally deal with the manufacturer, not the carrier ( i.e. If my iPhone or iPad breaks, I call Apple - not O2).

The iPhone is unique in that aspect, support is almost always done through the carrier in the US. Probably because handsets are almost always sold subsidized through the carrier (and frequently customized for them).

Note the author of the article states in the comments:

> Hardware is pure speculation -- my source didn't have any details for me. Launch date and carrier he did have

So don't get too excited about the specs, they are plucked from the ether.

The best part of the article for me is the fact that that picture is the iPad, down to the little x at the top right corner of the keyboard window.

And yet it can't be that far off. ChromeOS is basically a browser with a kernel. Done right, I bet a product like that could be as viable, if not more so, than the iPad. And along the way, Apple might actually be out-minimized.

"This one's a render, but Google's Chrome OS table is REAL."

At least per their anonymous yet doubtless terribly reliable source.

Smoke and mirrors. Let's see a demo.

> Expect it to be every bit as geek-tastic as the Nexus One -- Google won't want to disappoint its early adopters.

I've got a G1 matey, so I'll be skipping this tablet after being lumbered with Android 1.6 until I get a new phone.

Biggest problem with the G1 is that it was RAM constrained to begin with, and that's only gotten worse with 2.x.

FWIW, CyanogenMod has bee solid on mine. CM6 RC3 (Froyo) runs pretty nicely on my G1.

I recently wiped CyanogenMod as it wouldn't run the example scripts supplied with the Android Scripting Environment.

First, they copied Apple iPhone and created Android. Now they are going iPad and creating this tablet. Very innovative Google. very.

Google purchased Android Inc. before the iPhone had been announced.

Android has improved upon iOS in certain aspects... I would expect the same of an Android/Chrome OS tablet

Google bought Android in August 2005.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc200...

The IPhone was launched January 2007.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/01/09iphone.html

It's also worth noting, though, that early Android phones were much more like Blackberry competitors:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/ip-telephony/two-photos-here-of-a-... http://gizmodo.com/334909/google-android-prototype-in-the-wi...

And once the iPhone was released, the target form factor changed. There's a fair share of Apple inspiration in the industry.

But you just compared the acquisition of Android to the launch date of the iPhone. Are you saying that the development and manufacture of the iPhone all took place in 2007?

No. But did Google have knowledge of the details of the IPhone before it launched?

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