So after yesterday’s news about Chrome OS and Android supposedly merging, we got a bit more insight into what is actually happening. As it turns out, Google claims Chrome OS isn’t disappearing – it’s just going to promote Android as an additional choice for OEMs to put on laptops and desktop machines, as Recode reports.
Starting next year, the company will work with partners to build personal computers that run on Android, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans. The Chrome browser and operating systems aren’t disappearing – PC makers that produce Chromebooks will still be able to use Chrome. But they will now have the choice of Android. And its arrival suggests the supremacy of mobile inside Google, which has prioritized how to best handle the shift away from desktop across all its divisions.
Ever since Google unveiled Material Design, which works well on just about any size application, from full-screen tablets applications to small smartphone applications, and everything in between, it was clear to me Google was looking into expanding Android beyond smartphones and tablets. They’ve apparently been working on this for several years, with the first developer releases hitting next year, and the first devices in 2017.
This probably also explains the Pixel C. Pixel devices have always been kind of odd in that they clearly aren’t meant for the general public to buy, but more as showcases for people inside Google itself. The Pixel C – the Surface clone – would serve as a perfect developer and testing device for an Android that is more oriented towards dekstops and laptops.
This will basically spell the end for ChromeOS. A company cant viably offer two competing OS platforms. This will be similar to the GoogleTV -> AndroidTV migration
I know, remember when Apple had to abandon Mac OS X because they came out with the iPad Pro.
Difference would be that OSX on the macbooks, even the air, was and is a high-performing desktop system that has a ton of functionality and programs that iOS lacks or can’t have. ChromeOS brings nothing over Android save a reliance on more traditional Linux libraries and frameworks. Even with that there is only slightly better performance because it works off the web-first paradigm. Android is still a bit shit in places and could do with a few of ChromeOS’s base components but overall it brings far more to the table.
We’ll have to agree to disagree here. ChromeOS has a very different focus and feel to it. ChromeOS is for hassle free computing appliances that just work and automatically keep themselves up to date without issue or user intervention. They are also about as impervious to malware as possible for an Internet connected computing device. Also, Chromebooks boot in seconds, much faster than any Android device I’ve ever used.
Android is much more versatile. It is designed to be used across a variety of computing devices and customized accordingly, with all of the tradeoffs that entails. I just don’t see how Android is going to do what ChromeOS does without significant architectural changes. ChromeOS is a lot more than just a random Linux distro running a Chrome web browser.
WSJ seems to agree with my viewpoint.
“Alphabet’s Google to Fold Chrome Operating System Into Android”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/alphabets-google-to-fold-chrome-operati…
To be clear, i don’t disagree with you that the two OS are different and have differing focus. I was more referring to that fact that companies struggle to endorse two conflicting visions of what is “best” at once. For this reason I think one will subsume the other.
OSX and iOS are not competing platforms (yet).
First of all, only Apple makes iOS and OSX devices and there isn’t a single device they make that can run both.
Second of all, OSX is aimed at desktops and doesn’t support touch. iOS is aimed at mobile devices and requires touch
iPad Pro doesn’t run the same software as OSX.
Personal opinion: iPad Pro is only called Pro because Apple hopes it will start a Pro apps market and will blow new life into their tablet category. But in reality it is only a bigger iPad so it should have been called the iPad Plus
Android and ChromeOS however have a huge overlap in platform. Android can run all the software that ChromeOs can, and ChromeOS can run some Android software as well.
Yes, I remember April, 5 2018, like it was two and a half years in the future.
It makes sense. With Android the user is not in control anymore of his computer. And Google can make big money with it.
Funny fact: you’d think Chromebooks are even less open. But Chromebooks seems to be more open than mobile devices.
Which is why they’re killing it.
Other than open-source OSes, tell me a single major desktop OS that we have the user still in control?
We have Mac OS X, that in every release approaches to become a desktop version of iOS. We have Windows 10, that’s being given as a free upgrade in exchange of your privacy and control.
Unhappily, this is a trend, and one unlikely to reverse any time soon. We are in the age of digital walled gardens. The price to live in the Garden of Eden, free of worries and problems, is to have a God telling you what to do or not.
It remains to be seen what level of Walled Garden Alphabet, sorry Google create.
They will have to commit to long term support and releases. That is something I feel that is sorely lacking due to the rapid development of Android.
They need to show a 5-7 year support plan that is not ‘just upgrade to the latest version’.
The desktop is a whole different kettle of fish than a mobile device.
For example, there are rafts of software used in companies that won’t work properly on Windows 8 let alone W10. IF they want to make their OS a success in corporate environments then they will have to put in a lot of work.
As IBM seems to be demonstrating Apple kit needs a whole lot less support than Windows. What can Google offer in this space?
Let us wait and see….
Just like Windows 10.
Edited 2015-10-31 05:33 UTC
That move is interesting.
Previous attempts of bringing Android to laptops (called Smartbooks) were met with limited sales.
Lenovo (IdeaPad A10), Toshiba (AC100) and some others tried, but it never developed into a sustainable business.
I expect that an Android desktop/laptop will be aimed at the living room. But Android on compute sticks/multimedia STBs is a small niche compared to Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV.
I wonder what formula Google has found to make a difference this time.
Of course, you can already get an Android laptop from the Remix guys. They’ve had a laptop/tablet hybrid for a while. Now they are coming out with the Remix mini. I funded the mini via kickstarter and will be receiving it shortly. I already have a ChromeBox, so it will be fun to compare the two.
http://www.jide.com/en/remixos
But exactly like I expected it.
So the future is a desktop OS full of Java to the brim? Oh boy! Kill me now!!
I don’t know; is everything written in Java worse than everything written in Javascript on top of HTML5?
Chrome (OS) also support PNaCL
. In theory, most language implementations that use LLVM can run on it (though I think Google only support C and C++).
Funny I though I was using C++ on Android.
http://developer.android.com/ndk/index.html
Well…I’m currently developing for Android in Qt/QML/C++
Which btw works beautifully.
Edited 2015-10-31 12:11 UTC
How it is the experience now?
I tried to use 5.3 when it was the latest, ended up re-writing my views in Java with business logic in C++.
As Qt lacked support to many APIs and the widgets like open were still the desktop ones.
I do C++/Qt on Android using only QtWidgets + Qt StyleSheets and a couple of animations to mimic android ones.
You can’t tell the difference from this way from other Android apps.
You DO know that Android is not using Java any longer, right?
I didn’t know that. What is the native programming language for Android applications?
Its java. Just don’t tell anybody, ok
What’s wrong with Java?
aside from all the religious stuff…
ORACLE and the stupid DOJ/Judicial branch
Google screwed Sun and now we have a broken Java fork.
It is no different from J++ or J#.
Let the court squeeze them out.
All programming languages are religions.
Edited 2015-10-31 07:02 UTC
How can it not collide with Microsoft’ “strategy” of porting their apps to Android ?
What is the point of Windows, then ?
Pixel C a clone of Surface it is not. It is, however, a clone of the ASUS Transformer and several other product lines (Motorola Atrix+Dock) that all started with Android. If anything, it’s the Surface and iPad Pro that are the clones.
You mean other than the custom CPU, the custom operating system, the custom palm rejection system, the custom stylus (working with a custom screen stylus detection system), and the custom 3D touch? Other that that its identical.
It’s still been done before, hovewer “custom” Apple’s implementation may be, except for 3D Touch which won’t be available on the iPad Pro.
Sorry if I got that wrong – remind me again which tablet OEM have developed their own operating system as well as designing their own CPUs?
Does the name start with an A?
Well, Microsoft doesn’t design CPUs. Of any of the big OS developers, Apple is the only one that does that.
That’s not to say that Microsoft doesn’t design hardware – they do, but they use whatever they can instead of designing it.
However, that does not belittle the point that what Apple did with the iPad Pro (which is basically a tablet + keyboard) and Microsoft with the Surface is nothing more than a repeat of what was already done by other vendors, most notably in the Android market, though I wouldn’t be surprised if you found some similar stuff by Palm from the 1990’s – and they did at the time do their own CPUs, OS, etc too.
Though, now that I think of it I believe you could find a Palm (running PalmOS, like the Dana – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart#Dana) with a keyboard, and you might have been able to find an Apple Newton with keyboard too (called MessagePad).
Actually, Samsung does:
OS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen
CPU:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exynos
Can’t speak to Bada; that does seem to be their own;
However, I wouldn’t count Tizen since it’s a conglomeration of organizations creating it, Samsung just happens to be the current lead and most likely to deploy it. If you credit them; you’d have to credit Intel too for the same reason.
Now coming to a computer near you. We’ll long for the days of Windows XP before long.