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Google Chrome OS is designed to run nothing but Web apps, so a lot of OS UI concepts will have to be remapped. Your applications become browser tabs, your browser windows become multiple desktops, and your widgets become overlay panels.
Yes, it feels a little weird. With cloud computing services getting more and more robust, we may have to get used to these browser-based UI concepts by the time Chrome OS becomes available next year.
Originally posted on November 19, 2009 @ 4:03 pm
Google’s recent demo of Chrome OS answered several important questions about how a browser-only OS would operate. One of those questions is how it would handle removable storage. As you can see when the demo unit is attached to a digital camera, using a Web browser as a file browser works pretty well. That should come as no surprise, since Windows has integrated Internet Explorer with its own file manager for the last twelve years.
While it’s fun to see a Microsoft Web app opening a file in Chrome OS, it’s rather telling that the demo game is Flash chess. This demo apparently came a bit too early for the launch of hardcore cloud gaming service OnLive. Let’s hope Web apps and games mature into far more impressive fodder for Chrome OS once it’s released next year.
Originally posted on November 20, 2009 @ 9:46 am
Google gets extreme in its push to get users to the cloud with Google Chrome OS. It’s essentially a browser running on a very slim Linux build — so slim, in fact, that you can’t run any native apps on it. Instead, Google is counting on the HTML 5’s enhanced ability to access client machine resources. [Read more…]
Originally posted on November 19, 2009 @ 3:38 pm
Finally, someone at Apple has officially conceded what we knew all along — that the Mac OS X Snow Leopard upgrade DVD can be used to upgrade any Intel-based Mac, though the company frowns at such a practice and points at the licensing agreement.
After some squirming and question avoidance, Alan Eyzaguire, director of software product marketing at Apple EMEA, told Charles Arthur at The Guardian that customers could buy the SL upgrade disc and use it directly, instead of buying the four-times-more-expensive “Mac Box Set” that’s meant for users of Tiger and earlier operating systems.
Alan repeatedly extolled the virtues of both iWork 09 and iLife 09, which come in the full-blown box set, as reasons why Mac users will play fair and buy that version. [Read more…]
Originally posted on September 14, 2009 @ 12:26 pm
Jason Kincaid shares what might be a screenshot of the upcoming Google Chrome OS. I don’t know whether this image is genuine or faked, but we can certainly see Google’s minimalistic design ethic in the layout.
Up until two years ago, Google Video offered a downloadable media player. Perhaps that will be recycled into the player app in the screenshot.
Originally posted on August 31, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
