Google reveals nonexistent Chrome tablet Google has unveiled a series of image and video mock-ups of a tablet PC based on its Chrome OS, the still-gestating operating system centered around its Chrome web browser. Mountain View uncloaked its tablet "concept UI" early last week - two days before Steve Jobs announced Apple's long-awaited tablet, the unfortunately named …
"
"While its primary focus is netbooks, Chrome OS could eventually scale to a wide variety of devices," reads Google's form factor UI post. "Each would have vastly different input methods, available screen space, and processing power."
"
i'll settle for a regular linux distro like Fedora or Debian on my desktop/netbook/laptop
How about an OS which is not as closed, and limited as Google's Chrome?
I mean, apple may be a kettle to this pot, but at least you can download third party apps.
A google tablet will be Google's machine, running Google's OS, backing up Google's data (formerly YOUR data) to Google's servers, running Google's apps with Google's adds. no third party necessary (or allowed).
Yah, I'll take anything that allows me some local and remote controll over my files, kthxbye.
Google will publish the ultimate bundle, the one Ubuntu wants to be but never quite gets there.
They'll supply you with everything you need from the very first boot up - a word processor, an email client, music service, voip, navigation, everything you could ever want from a mobile device. All you need to do is be online. Hell, with connectivity costs dropping each year, will it shock anyone if Google starts providing wireless internet connection anywhere for free?
Google's complex business plan is incredibly simple: If you're not online, Google can't make money off of you. PERIOD. All their services are geared towards getting you connected.
People will overlook the small matter of their own privacy to enjoy this advantage of simplicity, as they have done with countless other Google services (or as they have done with Apple products, though there the tradeoff was between simplicity and low cost). And Chrome OS will be a smash hit both at the checkout counters, and in Google's quarterly reports.
There should be an Eric Schmidt with horns icon...
I can take my EEEPC, for example, and install Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, Debian, whatever... on it then install Chrome and have all that and the ability to run local apps -- which are likely to run faster.
If I'm Asus, or Dell, or whoever... I can just install my favourite Linux for Dummies distro then Google Chrome (or Chromium if I want to be careful about patents) and do everything a Chrome only device can do.
Having a Chrome OS device is one step up from an IE only device and one step down from Windows mobile.
>For touch screens, we provide much larger tab and toolbar targets than on standard chrome. This UI takes up more screen space, but is ideal for portrait devices, and can be autohidden to have full-screen<
Good idea, shame MS didn't think of that for Win7's awesome touch stuff. Balmer, fingers are fatter than onscreen cursors.
if google brings out a tablet like that, which supports multitouch, etc, etc, etc, runs chromeos, etc, etc.
how long before it gets jailbroken? it's all hardware that linux supports, just wait or write yourself a linux distro that installs directly on it, bingo, you got your own linux ipad.
except linux is shit at doing lots of things, so probably better of staying with the chromeos :D hwhahahahahah, you guys are so easy!
no seriously, I mean, running linux, sounds great, but at the end, what are you gonna do with a tablet like that? remembering that to fully take advantage of a touch screen, you need a custom written system that exploits the capabilities to the max.
if all you're gonna get is xorg/metacity/gnome desktop, as it stands right now, it's not going to be an amazing experience, multitouch gnome apps? oh wait, you'll need MPX in order to even get off the ground, right?
so whilst you all can cirtclejerk yourselves over running linux on it, nobody will find it impressive, cause they'll see all the problems you guys routinely ignore.
burn baby burn, disco inferno!!!!
A g-pad would be inherently less evil than an i-pad.
Though I still prefer to be able to install my own software without an "app-store" (though they can be convenient), keep my data on my own computer, where it'll be less prone to data mining. Something like the windows mobile without the nitpicky interface would be more my style. Strange to think of all these mobile OS'es the Micro$oft one is the "free"est. Download a .cab, install anywhere. Connect via USB, peruse all content, transfer whatever you want. I only wish there was a viable Linuxish alternative. Maemo looks very promising but it's too early to tell. Not enough mindshare so far.
I realize there is no real privacy and anonimity any more. But if I bought and paid for it, it is mine to do as I see fit. I want the minimal freedom to use as much and as little of the cloud as I see fit.
So far neither the chubby/sexy ipad nor the nebulous g-pad does the trick. Moving along..
(Disclaimer: I do have a machine running Ubuntu, and routinely use OS/X. My pick is Windows 7. I admire the iphone, but use a semi-kludgey WinMob).
Really such a surprise given the fact that any company in the hardware game is currently knocking-up plans to put out a tablet! They all want to get on the muppet-bandwagon, fanbois will buy anything, so if dopey, more-money-than-sense fanbois buy the gadget of the moment, then surely there is a market for the more financially challenged gadget collectors to buy a similar gadget.
I wish some people would rememeber that these companies don't make gadgets to improve humanity's evolution, they do it for cash, pure and simple. If that means jumping on someone else's bandwagon, so be it!
"Chrome OS is essentially a Linux-based operating system that runs a single local application: Google's browser."
AFAIK, the whole reason MS went to war over Netscape was Andreessen's statement that "everything happens in the browser". That's what? 10-20 years ago?
GPad as a name won't work in the UK anyway, at least not in Kings College.
They won't be able to find it, har har..
The ipad is a really an Apple Controlled Browser appliance. Not a Tablet. I'd never buy it preferring something *I* have control over (Win7, WinCE, Symbian, Linux, Maemo, XP etc..)
ChromeOS should not be called an OS really. It's a more basic version of iPad controlled by a Monopolist.
There generally isn't a need for buttons much larger than normal on a touchscreen. My iPod is pretty good at guessing what I meant when I tap a tiny little link on a web page with one of my great big grubby fingers. Apple got it right there and other manufacturers should licence the technology if necessary. Then all that is necessary is for the software to have a suitable way of dealing with the occasions it guesses wrong, such as a robust Cancel/Back/Undo mechanism, and there shouldn't be any problem.
The main problem I have with both the iPad and the Google vapourPad is the exposed screen with no covering. If laptops do go this way in the future, losing the keyboard and therefore losing the need to have a lid then I would be worried about scratching the screen all the time. I really like the Microsoft concept, having two screens which fold shut like a laptop and open out into a dual-monitor arrangement. If you need a keyboard, it can be done on one of the screens in software, otherwise you have a dual screen arrangement with multitouch on both.
I think a case like that from Apple makes sense here, especially when you can also use it as a stand.
Apart from that: I've been using an iPod touch (1G) for more than two years now, with no case or any protection at all, and the screen is like new. I daily throw it into pockets or bags without even thinking of it and the glass is just fine, there's not a single scratch. I suppose it may be different with plastic screens, though.
I know that such a tiny device like the touch may be a bit different from a real (larger) tablet but it surely has managed to just vaporise most reservations I might have had back then. About the only things I kept missing were a larger screen and a bit more speed. What I surely was NOT missing is doing everything with web apps in a browser (*shudder*).
I would not buy a tablet using ChromeOS. I really don't like the idea of "cloud" computing and all my data being stored on remote servers that I have no control over. I guess I wouldn't really have anything too interesting on a tablet but that's not the point.
An Android tablet I could get on board with.
@"Mountain View uncloaked its tablet "concept UI" early last week - two days before Steve Jobs announced Apple's long-awaited tablet, the unfortunately named iPad."
Amazing what artists can knock up in Photoshop when their boss is on their backs asking for a quick concept product design, to usurp media attention away from a competitor product. After all, iPad's have their own OS tied into Apple and so not tied into Google's Chrome OS. Not good news for Google, so Google invent their own concept product design for now, then release an actual product some time later. (That concept UI artwork looks like it could be created by an artist in 10 to 20 minutes (if that) with Photoshop and a 3d render of their choice etc..).
I've actually been in companies that have played this game, the boss hears a competitor is about to release product news and hey presto the artists have a concept artwork drawn up in double quick time, ready to beat the competitor to the media attention.
(I believe in the media industry, when they play this kind of game against each other, they call it spoiler tactics).
Its a very underhanded tactic, but sadly its a fairly common stunt in business. (So much for “do no harm” ;)
(What gets me about the “do no harm” double talk lie is that they say it in the hope we will then trust them and not see them as just another ruthless company, which they are, just like many other large companies, because within their ranks of thousands of staff they have ruthless people just like most big companies. Some of these ruthless people have no problem playing underhanded games and lying whenever it suits their goals).
It's easy to make if you can fake the video. In fact, Star Trek had solid state storage in the 1960s, although the hot-swappable devices that Mr Spock used to generate fake orders to take the Enterprise to Talos IV were larger than modern USB and apparently only held a few seconds audio each.
They also had a matter transporter.
Stargate SG-1 had normal people using Tablet PCs. How's that for science fiction! ;-) (I use a Tablet PC. But I am not normal.)
Aren't concept model computers usually carved in wood and painted? Well done Google for bypassing the "material object, at least" step of developing and showing your new product. Now that 3D displays are common, we can probably expect to see many more devices at electronics shows that we can't actually touch - unless the demonstrator also provides haptic gloves. But that would be severely icky. Maybe with disposable glove linings...
Not the same, really. MS did something very similar with their Courier video. It surely looked impressive (much more than that Google thing actually) but when you looked closer it clearly was MADE to impress and nothing else. It was full of gestures and hidden features nobody would find without studying a manual, every gesture was doing something different in every app and it totally relied on perfect handwriting recognition all over the place.
Making things look great in a video is not the same as making things that are great to use. When I saw that video I instantly knew that MS is lightyears away from actually delivering anything in this realm. I don't know about Google. Making a tablet that runs an OS that runs nothing but a browser is easy but to make it do something useful may be not so easy.
As a relatively new convert to Macs I can say it would be nice to some real competition for Apple. Why wouldn't you want more than one company that actually cares about the user experience?
I do agree a mock up is kind of pointless. I really like that Apple doesn't, usually, talk about products till they actually launch. No vapor-ware there.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
