- Posts tagged Chrome OS
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Three, Five, Seven, Ten! When Will Dell Compete Again?
There will also be three-, four- and secondary 10-inch devices coming, with the three-inch device coming roughly at the same time as the seven-inch Android hardware.
Yeah, it's like a high school cheer. A 7-inch tablet coming in "weeks", a 10-inch coming in maybe a year, and 3- and 5-inch devices coming (not counting the Streak, I guess, which is already 5 inches).
Does Dell even have a strategy? These are all Android devices despite the fact that Google says Android isn't optimized for tablets. Google would prefer manufacturers use Chrome, which Dell says is "being considered". Will this lead to another round of multi-screen-size tablets with Chrome OS in addition to Android? If not, then will Dell's Android tablet users be abandoned that quickly?
This is all a sign of Dell flailing away, hoping that Apple's decision to start with a ~10-inch display was a mistake, and that people are really clamoring for a smaller screen size. This despite the fact that the iPad is selling in the millions. Dell's not alone here, other manufacturers are also throwing their pre-announcements in the ring.
I don't know if Apple will deliver a smaller-screen iPad, but if they do I bet it's just one additional size and that's it. And in any case you can bet it was deliberate to start with one model, to help perfect it (perfect the software, really) before trying to do another. Dell's trying to slam out four models in a year, using an OS its manufacturer doesn't even recommend, while considering a different OS for the future. That can't imbue their users with a sense of confidence, nor their competitors with any sort of concern.
Google wants to move away from local apps on mobile devices
At its recent I/O developer conference, Google advised manufacturers to adopt its Android mobile platform for near-term product releases and use its upcoming Chrome operating system for longer-term projects.
I read the above gem in an article about how the iPad caught competitors off-guard. We've all heard about Android's success; that Android-based devices are now outselling iPhones. Given this success, why is Google still developing another mobile OS? The answer is simple, and Steve Jobs nailed it when introducing the iPad: People are using local apps, not web apps and search, on their mobile devices.
The problem is, if you're not on a web page, Google's not making any money. They need you in a browser, not some local app. This is true even on Android. Whether on an iPhone or a Nexus One, if you use an app to find a restaurant near you, Google doesn't get a cut of that action.
Android copied Apple's iPhone approach because it had to in order to gain traction. But Google does nothing to help make the Android platform good for apps. There's little to ensure consistency in the user experience across devices, or even across apps. Little to make third-party apps stand out of a crowded mobile field. Little to help maximize a developer's reach to the Android base. Indeed, most of Goole's moves work against those things:
- Fragmentation hurts developers since they have to pick and choose what devices to target. It hurts consumers since they will not be able to get the same apps on different devices.
- Minimal vetting on apps lets bad ones through, and Google lets the user base report security issues, etc., and pulls the apps after that. Consumers must suffer the pain of doing Google's vetting for them.
- While preaching "open" at the top of their lungs, they've gone to bed with Adobe to put Flash on Android, and presumably allow Flash apps. These will be lowest-common-denimonator apps and poor performers, but that's no sweat off Google's back.
In short, while appearing to do all they can to let as many apps be available as possible, they've created a platform to breed lower-quality, inconsistent apps that could be risks that have to be removed later. That might even be OK for geeks, but not for the remaining 99% of consumers.
Simultaneously, Google's working on Chrome OS, a browser OS that does not allow local apps. Google is terrified of the rise of a device platform that no longer relies on their search engine. Even with the "sabotage" done for local apps on Android, they'll feel better when you don't run anything local at all. With all the success of Android, there's little else to explain Google continuing to expend resources developing and pushing Chrome OS.
Google's message is clear: Stay. In. The. Browser.
Google's Chrome Web Store: "Open" or "Closed"?
Google is reminding us all that "apps" can and should run on the open web, and not just in closed, vertically integrated and controlled environments like the iPhone/Pad/Touch.
Is that what they're reminding us of? Since Apple's devices have a compliant web browser in Safari we'll find out soon enough.
If the Chrome Web Store is truly about supplying apps that "should run on the open web" you'll be able to use it on an "iPhone/Pad/Touch". If not, then Google has just created a "closed, vertically integrated and controlled" environment of their own. If the latter, I wonder if the "open" zealots will call them on it.
I'm sure Apple is terrified
We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience
The quote makes it sound like they're rooting through Google's dumpsters to bolt on whatever they find.
Good luck to them, but one is a wireless carrier, and the other an ad firm. Shouldn't they get some hardware people involved before they decide what they're going to build?
Google To Offer Their Own Tablet Computer?
Google… is soon expected to begin selling its version of a slate computer, like Apple’s iPad
What a shock. Google has become downright Microsoftian in that figuring out their business plan for the next 6-12 months is as simple as looking at what Apple's doing today.
The good news is the alleged tablet is claimed to be running Android, not Chrome OS. The even better news is that it appears Google is willing to lift their silly restrictions on the Android marketplace for tablet devices.
Google doesn't really want to lift those restrictions. They prefer you be on the web performing searches, not running apps and bypassing the ads they serve up. Still, with the iPad ecosystem out there it would be tough to compete with a web-only device, especially since the iPad is also great at serving up web pages.
Google needed to rethink their mobile strategy. Continue to improve Chrome (the browser), and make Android (and its apps) their smartphone and non-smartphone OS. In other words, have a unified mobile strategy instead of two OSes with nothing in common. Maybe this is the start of that. Then all they need to do is kill off Chrome OS and use those developer talents elsewhere.
Even with the above, we don't know if they'll have a real competitor to the iPad, but they'll be in a far better position than anyone else.
