Google Releases Chrome OS Tablet Concept Demo 237
MojoKid writes "With all of the iPad buzz stirring up the tech world over the past couple of weeks, Chrome OS has almost been forgotten. Though Google has yet to officially release the netbook-centric operating system to the public, the company continues to keep details flowing about their forthcoming lightweight operating system. In their own response to all the recent tablet fanfare, Google decided to release some teaser shots and a demo video of the Chrome OS running on a concept tablet device. The Chromium team suggests that a screen of 5" to 10" is optimal for enjoying Chrome OS and of course tablets, netbooks and MIDs all fit that size class rather well. Couple a streamlined Google-based OS with NVIDIA's Tegra 2 processor in a design like this and the iPad could have serious competition."
Re:Thanks Marketing! (Score:2, Informative)
How about legal-format size - 8.5 x 14 (a 17" laptop is 9 x 14.5) - turn it sideways and it's almost perfect for hd widescreen format viewing without letterboxing. More than one person can look at it at a time, any virtual keyboard could be almost full-sized, and still leave more half the screen in landscape mode, more room for heat dissipation through the housing, for a webcam, usb connectors, flash card readers, multiple hard drives, a real multi-tasking operating system and all the other things the iTampon doesn't have.
THAT would sell.
Re:Too much lockdown! (Score:4, Informative)
What nerds don't get is that most people don't care about "user's freedom." They're happy to buy a controlled but stable device that lets them browse the web.
AppleTV failed because it wasn't open; it can only play content from the iTunes store, or painstakingly transcoded files. People would rather use devices that are convenient, which implies a certain amount of give and take with the user's needs (see XBox 360 and the PS3). People will want to listen to Pandora while using other applications, and if the iPhone/iPad OS4 still has a single-tasking mentality, it will be fundamentally broken, just like AppleTV is. Ditto with receiving instant messages while playing a game or browsing the web; OS3 can only do that on the 3G network. The iPhone was enough of a revolution for people to see past these faults (heck, I own one); but when the competition starts in earnest Apple will need to adjust.
People aren't as stupid as you seem to believe.
Re:Too much lockdown! (Score:4, Informative)
Apple's [user experience] model for OS X is totally, completely separate from the iPhone
Agreed, 110%, however what a lot of people don't realize, at least those that aren't iPhone or Mac OS X developers, is that the iPhone OS and core Mac OS X share over 80% of their source code [Apple WWDC'09]. You also use the same tools and many of the frameworks to develop apps (in Objective-C, C and/or C++) for either platform. It is plausible to have the same code base and then change a build target to create a Mac OS X or iPhone version of a product.
Re:Google has gadget envy... again.. (Score:3, Informative)
"GNU/Linux" is a fabrication of RMS that has a single task of giving the GNU foundation the illusion of being directly involved with the kernel development.
Quite the opposite. Just as TCP/IP means "TCP using IP as the next layer down", GNU/Linux means "GNU using Linux as the next layer down".
Re:Must have apps. (Score:3, Informative)
Uh.. with google gears you don't need a constant internet connection, you don't need a connection at all. I use gears on my netbook and I can still read/compose emails, read my google reader, make new and modify docs/spreadsheets all without an internet connection.