Why Google Chrome OS has already won | Hacker News Reader

Why Google Chrome OS has already won

scobleizer.com

30 pointssant0sk133 comments

> Or, what about my son who is in high school. By the time Chrome OS comes along in big numbers he’ll be in college. Why take a $1,000 computer to class? Couldn’t he do everything he needs to do on a low-cost computer that’s lightweight, replaceable, uses low power, and just uses the web? Absolutely!

I see very few netbooks on campus. You might expect them to be overrepresented given that students aren't known for having a lot of money, but I suspect that most undergrads are reluctant to have what's usually their only computer be something that isn't fully-featured.

The computer industry has a long history of claiming that certain users don't 'need' much power, so they should be willing to settle for minimal systems. It misses the point - people who don't need much computer are the least willing to buy low-end systems, because they don't want their one computer to be a dog. Netbooks are in a sense a luxury for richer consumers who are able to afford more than one system.

Chrome OS strikes me as riding the far edge of the gadget nerd/web 2.0 bell curve. You won't find an audience for this thing at Walmart.

This article conflates Chrome OS with the low-cost devices it will be running on. In reality, these devices will be able to run full-blown Windows or Linux as well; Chrome OS needs to prove that it can be better than a full-blown OS in some way (beyond just boot-up time, which is basically irrelevant).

I think any conflation is quite intentional. For all practical purposes, ChromeOS will be inseparable from the devices that run it, much like the iPhone and the iPhone OS.

Google has been quite clear that ChromeOS will not be run on general-purpose hardware. ChromeOS is designed for low-cost low-power ChromeOS devices, that will be packaged more like an appliance than a traditional computer.

You might be able to force Windows or Linux onto one of these ChromeOS devices, but you'll have to hack it.

NB: ChromeOS is a Linux

ChromeOS is a linux like Android is a linux. Which is to say: just barely.

The goal isn't to replace your desktop and "full-blown OS" with a Chrome OS device, but to supplement it with a purpose-built internet device.

Even if you could hack Windows 7 on to it, I'm sure would lag like hell on any hardware that's Chrome specific. Why else would Google be running their optimized browser, on an optimized OS, on an optimized hardware platform, but to cut down on processing requirements?

beyond just boot-up time, which is basically irrelevant

Really? You don't think the idea of a 3 second startup is a game changer in the netbook space? Like all silicon valley geeks my laptop is never turned off, but I also happen to know plenty of people who do turn off their laptop after every single time they use it.

Chrome OS needs to prove that it can be better than a full-blown OS in some way

Of course as developers we're in love with the idea of powerful do-all machines. But most people seriously just need a way to check email and login to Facebook. The brilliance of Chrome OS is that Google can patch on the few little things that the masses really need to completely ditch the desktop paradigm. If they get it right users will eat it up because it completely sidesteps all the complexity of modern OSes, which no one likes, and only geeks put up with because we understand and can utilize the power it gives us.

3 second bootup time is not a game changer. After I got a mac and suspend just worked I never once thought about boot up time. When I am done I close the lid, it goes to sleep and suspends if I don't use it for several days and the battery is going to die. Then when I open the screen ... shocker it actually resumes, every time! I know coming from windows and linux this is amazing. Anyway the point is that with proper suspend/sleep boot time doesn't matter one bit

That's true, but my nifty 13" Macbook Pro cost $1400 or so. Chrome devices are likely to be in an entirely different price range. Three second bootup there _is_ a game changer.

Maybe my choice of words was too strong, but it really is nice for those times when A) you completely run out of power B) you need to reboot after updates C) Decide to turn it off as many normal people do, even with Macs D) The first time you turn it on.

A) When a macbook is about to run out of power it suspends to disk. Then when you plug it in and turn it on it restores in seconds. I honestly don't understand why linux and windows laptops don't behave this way by default. Closing my linux laptop lid, having it go to sleep, run out of battery over the weekend and then just die loosing everything is stupid.

B) Yes I have to install mac updates. But that is a few times a year.... And the update takes longer then the boot so again the boot is moot.

C) I find closing the lid the normal way I 'shutdown'.

D) The first time I boot a new computer it doesn't actually boot up the desktop because it immediately prompts you for language, make a user, etc. So again booting the desktop doesn't matter in this case either.

sigh none of this is new information. I've owned Macs for 23 years.

Less complexity, less power consumption, faster boot are all plusses. You got me on game-changing, but that's it.

> But most people seriously just need a way to check email and login to Facebook

But why not just use a cell phone? Apart from the large screen, it seems to me that a chrome-os system will be similar to a smartphone.

It will. With a large screen and a proper keyboard.

Im unconvinced this is as bad a thing for it as people are suggesting. To be honest I think that will sell it to hundreds of people.

Google have the clout to get it out there and adopted by manufacturers. And it looks like their planning a really slick UI / experience. To me that suggests they've taken a good long look at Apple and learned how to sell Cool.

I can see a really solid niche for these devices.

The same niche that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Companion tried to fill 10 years ago?

What percentage of stuff normal people did with computers 10 years ago was on the web?

> But what if there were a new device that costs less than $100 that JUST does cookbooks and other things I need in the kitchen? I would buy one. A Chrome OS is all that’s needed for such a specialized device.

So someone would deliberately cripple chrome to prevent you being able to access the net on it? What a genius idea! What about an Amazon kindle that can only ever read one book? This is surely the author's vision of world with a simple UI for everything. No longer will users have to twist their brains to conceive of getting all sorts of information through the one device.

Somehow I don't see this as being in the spirit of what google has in mind. I'm sure you could configure it to start of on a recipe site/content and package it as a cookbook for those who are not so tech savy. But totally crippling a general purpose device is a terrible waste of resources and is not the way forward IMHO.

If Microsoft wants developers to develop for Silverlight so bad why don't they just make a Chrome OS plug-in? The thing is open source. Moonlight already runs on Linux. Wouldn't take a rocket scientist.

That's even if Google wants Silverlight to not work. They clearly support Flash and I suspect they want the Chrome OS to support the entire web including Silverlight sites.

So now you have open apps working on Windows and Silverlight apps working on Chrome while Robert Scoble just seems kind of stupid.

The argument of putting Chrome OS on low-cost low-power devices seem to put Chrome only for a short future doesn't it? As hardware continues to evolve, we will have better hardware with cheaper cost, less electricity but more powerful.

Scoble re-iterates "developer developer developer". I think it's quite hard to have a scalable in-the-cloud web-app vs mobile phone app or one-off desktop-machines thus making the Chrome OS to have higher barrier of entry.

I think he nailed it: more of a competition for developer support.

Seriously, I absolutely don't get the point of 'fast' boot times. Win 7 boots in 40 seconds and Chrome OS boots in 10 seconds. What are you going to achieve in the 30 seconds that Chrome OS saves you??? Save the world???

It's not "How will you spend those seconds," it's "What impulses become reasonable when you can satisfy them in ten seconds instead of forty?"

Twitter is bigger than blogger because tweeting takes seconds and blogs take minutes.

The point is power consumption. If a machine is instant on/off, then there's no reason to ever revert to sleep, which still drains battery.

The only reason we have stepped power consumption modes is because moving from full off to full on is such a pain in the ass.

The solution is to improve sleep mode, not make it faster to boot up. We're past the point now when anyone should turn their computer off in daily use, any more than they manually power down their cell phone or MP3 player.

Fast boot + no client-side state => you can turn the damn thing completely off without worrying about losing your setup => longer wall-clock battery life.

Lets say I have a series of installs to do that require rebooting.

There are 10 boots total (New machine, lots of corporate software, probably poorly made!).

400s v 100s.

Or 1m v 5m.

Now spread that over say, 400 computers (New corporate office, new equipment).

(40 * 10) * 400 = 160,000s, or 2666m, or 44hr.

(10 * 10) * 400 = 40,000s, or 666m, or 11hrs

In short: Perspective, dude.

You're not going to be installing any corporate software on a Chrome OS computer though. Also, why aren't you booting computers concurrently in your hypothetical?

Hehe. Find me a corporate company that wants to put all their stuff on Google. Google Enterprise is one thing. ChromeOS is another.

If you think Google wont make this incredibly enticing to companies, you're a fool and probably would have scoffed at the idea of Adsense ten years ago.

Yes I would have. Mainly because no company would have been able to make it work back then. No one even thought of Adsense 10 years ago. You do realize the whole reason Omid is a billionaire is because he was the one of the first main marketers for the company and he was a new employee 10 years ago.

Oh come on, there is no way even Google would be able to convince companies to migrate their data to cloud storage. Atleast not in the next few years.

Yes, trust your entire (cyber) life to Google Inc. They do no evil, haven't you heard? Platforms like Chrome OS are the enablers of (very possible) future police states.

Just reading through the chromium OS documentation and they at least claim that in future versions you'll be able to log in with an openid instead of a Google ID and use non-Google web apps.

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