Google Releases Mockup of a Potential Chrome OS Tablet
Google Releases Mockup of a Potential Chrome OS Tablet
Posted 02/02/2010 at 2:32pm
| by Bart Salisbury
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Google isn’t going to take this whole Apple iPad thing lying down. Problem is, Google’s got nothing physical to counter Apple’s big marketing splash. That doesn’t mean Google can’t steal some of Apple’s thunder, and at the same time soften the iPad’s market position. All Google needs to do is suggest there’s something better down the road--if you just wait. And what could be better than a tablet PC running on Chrome OS?
What Google is offering are “visual explorations”. There isn’t a real product, or even a prototype, so there’s nothing concrete to work from. But these visualizations do offer some hints of what a future Chrome OS tablet might be like. Google says some of the possibilities are: “keyboard interaction with the screen”, “launchers as an overlay”, “contextual actions triggered via dwell”, “zooming UI for multiple tabs”, and “creating multiple browsers on screen using a launcher”. And, the video presentation that accompanies the visualizations suggests multi-tasking. (Take that iPad!)
Gearlog says the first Chrome OS-based tablets, from third-party hardware manufacturers, are expected at the end of this year. It will be interesting to see how close they come to these visualizations.
Image Credit: Google
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urdead4g
February 02, 2010 at 4:24pm
And what could be better than a tablet PC running on Chrome OS?
A notebook or netbook running on Chrome OS..
1337Goose
February 02, 2010 at 3:20pm
Sadly, Chrome being able to open multiple tabs is already enough to kill the iPad on the multitasking front.
Also, does somebody want to take my next question... Why is Chrome OS Linux based when the Linux distribution of Chrome doesn't even do half as many things as the Windows version?
It can't bookmark sync, there are several extension features that work under Windows but not Linux, and there's no support for Google gears. So what gives?
~Goose
lien_meat
February 03, 2010 at 10:20am
The only thing I can find that is different about chrome on my ubuntu install is the bookmarks sync (edit: forgot about gears...but I haven't found it to work reliably on the win versions either, not as well as in FF anyway...any I honestly have never found much use for it. It's not something I care about. Linux does have it working fro FF though...so you'd think it would be easy to port to chrome...)...and I use a plugin for that for cross browser bookmark syncing anyway (xmarks). As for plugins...all the one's I've encountered work fine. Which ones do you find don't work in linux?
Also, besides bookmark sync (which I'm sad that the linux version doesn't have yet) the development builds and beta's for the linux version have been the same or a head of the windows version lately anyway. It got extensions first, and also theme capability first (unless I didn't get the windows version when it first came out, but I believe I did). Windows version might get some things first, but the linux version gets others first. I'm pretty sure they are about even in terms of development speed lately, especially when you consider how fast the linux version caught up, because initially when chrome was released, the chromium builds didn't really do a thing. I could be wrong though.
1337Goose
February 03, 2010 at 4:43pm
I can't find anyway to make my bookmarks sync, XMarks is broken and Chrome doesn't have native support. The only reason the Linux version appears to move faster is because you can only obtain the beta build for Linux, which is also available for Windows.
I also had trouble with plugins to begin (Flash especially), but I've been able to rectify that problem. I've also had problems with extensions not being able to capture my cursor. Fortunately, all of the problems I've listed already appear on the bug reports page, and are (from what I'm told) being worked on.
~Goose
lien_meat
February 05, 2010 at 4:25pm
that's interesting. I have been using xmarks for a while...and it's working for me. Flash on linux is a problem reguardless of what browser you use...don't make this a chrome issue. It can be hell on any browser. It's an adobe/linux issue that will most likely NEVER be solved.
1337Goose
February 06, 2010 at 8:53am
Actually, I managed to get Flash working decently (of course, not as well as it does in Windows).
Just by the way, what version of Chrome for Linux are you using? And are you on a 32 bit or 64 bit build?
~Goose
van_helblaze
February 02, 2010 at 6:57pm
Because GNU/linux is open source, so they didn't have to make the whole OS from scratch, they only need to modify what other's have done.
van_helblaze
February 02, 2010 at 2:57pm
As long as Google allows users to install a different operating system such as one of the many other linux distrobutions, Windows (maybe) [also depends on specs], I'd be all for the Google Tablet, though off topic I was dissapointed in Google Chrome OS when I tested it. Thought I would rather run that than the iPhone OS on a tablet.
lien_meat
February 03, 2010 at 10:23am
(edit: this was NOT supposed to be a reply.)
I like linux, but I don't really like chromeOS. It's much to limited in what it can do. I'd take any netbook oriented linux distro, or mainstream desktop oriented distro, or windows xp or 7 any day over chromeOS. I ran the VM image a while ago, and just felt way to restricted to like the OS. You really can't DO anything with it besides web stuff...and I KNOW that's the point, but don't like it. I prefer a traditional OS, at least for now.
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