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Comment by ddemchuk | Hacker News Reader

The vast majority of the things he was trying to do are outside of the planned usecase of this device. It's like if someone was disappointed at the lack of photoshop on the iPad...it simply wasn't designed for that.

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Attempting to hook up a monitor to the VGA port, attempting to use an external hard drive, attempting to get photos off his phone onto the internet, using an app (Aviary), using a calendar that can't be trivially moved to Google, and printing are all things he tried to do but did not have great success with. Except maybe the first one (hard to tell, though I would think if the port is there it ought to work), this still seems like enough stuff to me that is a planned use case that it is clear that this is UTTER DOOMED TR.... errr, ahem, obviously still alpha-ish level stuff. I don't think it was that unfair of a test; for instance, I would imagine "hooking up the house backup USB drive and sucking off the files for the cloud" really is a core use case.

Also, I think this isn't necessarily a bad test of what happens if you push the cloud concept to the extreme. Personally I'm more a hybrid kind of guy, where some things make sense "in the cloud" and some things make sense locally and am a bit skeptical about pushing the cloud "too far" just because it's convenient for a company, rather than necessarily the user, but YMWV. (Though, actually, the fact that YMWV is actually part of my point, that the balance lies in different places for different people and 100% cloud is rarely the solution.)

The application for access to the Cr48 asks you to use the laptop as your main computing device, so if he'd do it with his usual machine, it seems like fair game.

I was surprised that these devices have atom processors and SSD drives as opposed to an ARM chipset and embedded flash because the former specs essentially put it in netbook territory. Why would anyone want a netbook with such a limited OS?

> Why would anyone want a netbook with such a limited OS?

Maybe they didn't have tablets for this pilot thing.

Nah, Chrome OS is not designed for touchscreens. There's Android for that.

Well, so Google says. That seems a convenient way to get people off their backs for having both. Google TV runs on Android, not Chrome. Google TV isn't a touchscreen. The reality is, Google has two different product teams and had no intention of telling either one to give up on their goals. And with Apple pushing both MacOS and iOS, it has no immediate need to do so, either.

Google wants ChromeOS to eventually replace Android. It's cloud vs native, not Touch vs Keyboard and Mouse, and until cloud based becomes acceptable everywhere, which is what Google is betting on, they will continue to work on Android.

If you look at the taken care of for you security, updates, no administration or backups to do, no apps to lose in menus, etc. etc. I think it's clear that this is supposed to be a netbook+OS frankly for people who fuck up any other OS. Your young kids, your parents, your neighbor that keeps getting malware and asking you to fix it. If google can smooth over the rough edges and provide a good enough experience for these users where things never break or get infected that may make them (or you) very happy.

If they made dealing with a camera easier I could easily see my mother adjusting to this style. And in the end it'd be easier on my father and her.

The hardware doesn't seem very relevant for this pilot - the main point is Chrome OS. Because it's built on linux, an ARM port shouldn't be too much further than a recompile out of the way.

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