Ars Technica reports about Project Athena:
Google-watchers may have already head about “Project Athena,” a Chrome OS-related experiment of Google’s that has appeared in the Chromium source code a few times in the past. Today we got our first official look at the new interface via Francois Beaufort, a Chrome enthusiast who was hired by Google last year after leaking several high-profile Chrome features.
It looks a heck of a lot like Material Design and Android L UI behaviour coming to Chrome OS. Fascinating to see where this is going, but one thing appears to be clear: in the tug of war between Chrome OS and Android, the latter has won.
Maybe they’ll merge the two and we can get a $200 laptop running Android, with full keyboard and mouse support. As it is, I have a really hard time paying $200+ for what is essentially a web browser.
Asus Transformer?
Not hardly. First, the current ones aren’t nearly as cheap as Chromebooks, and on the last one I used, the keyboard was rather janky. Not to mention that with the Transformer line in particular, unless they’ve seriously increased the reliability since the TF-300, your chances of getting one that works perfectly on the first try are up a rat’s ass.
Edited 2014-07-19 06:50 UTC
Guess I lucked out with my Transformer Infinity (TF700T) and keyboard.
My only complaint about the keyboard is that it doesn’t work with terminal applications very well.
It’s not that I’m stuck on the 104 keyboard, but having basic things like Escape (ESC) available is a must.
Introducing a touch friendly tablet interface on Chrome OS… Why not just improve Android’s tablet+keyboard support.
Edited 2014-07-19 08:27 UTC
It’s madness isn’t it? Android has kind of corrupted and confused Google’s strategy. What comes first in Google? Is the web first, are native apps first?
Android is a clusterfudge of playing catch-up and constantly changing direction. Chrome OS is at least focused, but essentially useless (“No Skype? No Sale”)
…?
And this isn’t obvious? Every time a new direction has come along, Android has been slow and pained to adjust.
* The first touchscreen support was bad
* Android 3. Support for tablets was awkward and happened only because Google had to fork Android temporarily and keep it closed-source to get the work done (there was no source release for Android 3: tablet-only-edition). If that doesn’t show that AOSP wasn’t “ready” for tablets, I don’t know what does
* Pains moving away from early immediate-mode graphics drawing to a modern scene-based stack
* Scrolling. Oh my, the scrolling lag dramafest
Android is designed only for the now. As soon as something new comes up, it is wholly unprepared for change without massive pain.
All of those points are just reiterations of one: Android wasn’t designed from the ground up as a touchscreen multimedia OS, and has slowly been transformed into one. Which of course has nothing to do with being ‘designed only for the now’. If anything, Android has proven to be quite flexible.
I was about to say. The fact that Android spans so many device types – and sizes – and manages to be updated and changed all the time proves exactly the opposite of what OP claims.
If there’s a mobile operating system that’s “designed for the now” – with “now” being seven years ago – it’s iOS. Just look at the horrible home screen and how it’s taking exactly zero advantage of the screen space it has.
That’s just a design choice of the launcher app. Now if only Apple would allow you to install another one..
The home screen is there to launch apps. For that it is great. Micro apps on the home screen are of no use to me at all.
I find some of them terribly useful. I like having local weather forecast, an on/off toggle-button for the camera LEDs and a one-month view of my calendar visible without having to launch any separate apps. Especially the calendar is important.
“Micro apps” (or widgets as the rest of the world calls them) are actually incredibly useful. To display dynamic information on your home screen without having to even tap the screen, let alone launch a particular app, is actually a major missing feature from iOS, IMHO.
Apart from the “obvious” dynamic widgets like news and weather, there’s even some useful static widgets like one that displays your phone number. I know, you think *everyone* has their own mobile number memorised, but it’s not used that much (give it to people, perhaps quote in an online form to get SMS’es) so I like having it to hand when I need it.
I found “IP Widget” very useful too – lets you display a custom set of info about your phone’s net connection. Handy if you’re moving between networks and want to check the speed, IP address etc.
Do they really care, as long as they can offer their services? The only reason they were a Web-first company is because, not having their own platform, access through a browser was immediate and widespread. That may have changed with Android, but the goals remain the same. Only the means are different.
At least Skype will come to it together with Android apps compatibility…
Edited 2014-07-22 22:20 UTC
I would like to see a phone running stock arm Debian at decent speed, now that would finally make me buy a smartphone. There has been some attempts in the past, but those phones feel a bit too slow and sluggish in my (very limited) testing.
Perhaps the ubuntu phones will be great, it will certainly check it out when they release it at least.
Chrome OS is like G+, it is there, but is a desert island.
which is false.
There’s a healthy ecosystem behind G+.
And there’s a healthy user-base behind Chrome and Chrome OS.
That said, ChromeOS is limiting enough that power users typically install a Linux distro over it, and upgrade the limited hard drive to something more normal.