End of the line for Chromebooks?
October 30, 2015 9:29 AM Subscribe
Google will be folding its Chrome operating system into Android, according to The Wall Street Journal and independently confirmed by The Verge. Google is denying this, according to The Guardian, saying it is "committed to Chrome OS and it is likely Android and Chrome OS will co-exist with tighter integration between the two for the foreseeable future". Chromebook-like small laptops running Android such as the Pixel C are not uncommon, though they tend to dual-purpose as tablets and be more expensive than machines running the browser based operating system.
I mean, they did put the same guy in change of both OSes like over a year ago, sooo
posted by shakespeherian at 9:37 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by shakespeherian at 9:37 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
So wait, what happens to all those Chromebooks in schools? Do they all get upgraded to Androidbooks? Run Android? Or are they basically abandonware, like so many of Google's other products?
(My son's class uses iPads through 3rd grade, then moves to Chromebooks, so this is not even an idle question.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:44 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
(My son's class uses iPads through 3rd grade, then moves to Chromebooks, so this is not even an idle question.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:44 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
There's a ridiculous amount of common code between Chrome OS and Android already. Google developed the Android Runtime for Chrome allowing Chrome OS to take advantage of the extensive Android library eventually. It's only natural that they put Lockheimer in charge of all of it.
Chances are you'll see the ARC become more integrated into Chrome OS, a few of the Android features will be ported in and the two operating systems will become more and more indistinguishable. There's so much that can be brought to both operating systems without wrecking either of them.
posted by Talez at 9:47 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Chances are you'll see the ARC become more integrated into Chrome OS, a few of the Android features will be ported in and the two operating systems will become more and more indistinguishable. There's so much that can be brought to both operating systems without wrecking either of them.
posted by Talez at 9:47 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
My workplace is currently issuing Chromebooks following a migration into the Google app stack (Gmail, Drive / Docs / Sheets / Presentations, Hangouts, Chrome Remote Desktop, Chromecast in conference rooms). Very lightweight, but good for something to take to a meeting.
Getting an update and having it run Android could be interesting. It'd improve the available app ecosystem, if nothing else.
posted by graymouser at 9:50 AM on October 30, 2015
Getting an update and having it run Android could be interesting. It'd improve the available app ecosystem, if nothing else.
posted by graymouser at 9:50 AM on October 30, 2015
I have a Chromebook. Interesting speculation but the WSJ article doesn't give me anything to grab onto as a sense of what'll happen to Chromebooks as a result of this move. The comments in this thread are much more helpful.
posted by blucevalo at 9:50 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by blucevalo at 9:50 AM on October 30, 2015
I love my chrome book, primarily because it's cheap, light, and does just what I want (ie platform for writing). I'm not sure what it would mean if it were spookily transformed into an Androidbook overnight - presumably it's offline capabilities would get a bit better and I'd be able to do a few more things locally? Would the version of Chrome it runs change?
I do worry slightly for the future of Chromebook hardware - touch drives prices up, and I can see a focus on making them hybrids ruining them as cheap laptops.
posted by Artw at 9:56 AM on October 30, 2015
I do worry slightly for the future of Chromebook hardware - touch drives prices up, and I can see a focus on making them hybrids ruining them as cheap laptops.
posted by Artw at 9:56 AM on October 30, 2015
I can't imagine too many people didn't see this coming from day 1.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:58 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Thorzdad at 9:58 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
You can take my Chromebook from my cold dead hands. It's a total piece of crap as hardware but damn is that thing the fastest, most reliable and unkillable computer that I've ever used. I paid $250 for it two years ago and it's probably crashed at most three times since then and otherwise been a total workhorse of a laptop. Open the lid and it pops right to life, no waiting three minutes while icons load or something decides to update or some cleanup process wants to use 100% of the CPU which you wait there. And I still get something like six hours of battery life out of it.
posted by octothorpe at 10:03 AM on October 30, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 10:03 AM on October 30, 2015 [17 favorites]
Chromebooks are so great! I bought my mother one a few years ago and I've gotten exactly zero tech support requests from her since then. And this is someone who emails me to ask directions to the airport because she can't figure out Google Maps. (I love you mom)
Part of what's so great about the platform, though, is the utter simplicity. Hopefully they can retain that in whatever merged form of the OS emerges.
posted by selfnoise at 10:03 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Part of what's so great about the platform, though, is the utter simplicity. Hopefully they can retain that in whatever merged form of the OS emerges.
posted by selfnoise at 10:03 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
I have an Android phone and a Chromebook and I love them both. ChromeOS is brilliant, but there are times where I wish the ability to run Android apps was seamlessly built in. I'm hoping that this is what this news means, rather than ChromeOS being deprecated in favour of Android.
posted by salmacis at 10:03 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by salmacis at 10:03 AM on October 30, 2015
Chromebooks have become the standard laptop in most schools I've worked in or been around, and I know one major fear with school purchases is that the tech company will somehow mess things up. It's happened before!
posted by cell divide at 10:10 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by cell divide at 10:10 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
As Chrome and V8 gather more features, I could also see Chrome Apps becoming a de-facto rapid prototyping solution for Android, given that the current Java workflow is rather cumbersome for new developers to learn.
Also, Chrome OS's management and easy-upgrade features are exactly the biggest current deficiencies of Android as an Operating System.
Google are smart enough to realize that Chrome sells well in businesses and schools because it works really well as a managed platform (which is something that very few vendors even attempt to do, let alone execute competently). Those features aren't going away, because losing them would kill the biggest market for Chrome OS.
My guess is that something like this will happen:
1. ART and the Android Frameworks are gradually extracted from the Android OS as independent libraries.
2. Chrome OS gets better at running Android apps.
3. Android picks up some level of support for JavaScript-based applications, to establish a baseline level of bidirectional compatibility.
4. The "core" Android OS continues to shrink.
5. Google invests a big effort into building a device-driver abstraction layer for Chrome OS, which is later ported to Android
6. Chrome OS replaces the base Android operating system entirely
Somewhere along the way, Google announces a new JavaScript or Go-based SDK for Android, and gives Oracle the middle-finger. Support for ART and Java sunsets sometime around 2020.
As a loyal Android user, I can say that Android is kind of a mess, and the open-source aspect of it just... isn't very good. The exact opposite of how you'd want to manage an open-source OS. It makes no sense to fold Chrome OS into Android, but it makes a lot of sense to establish synergies between the two to counter their deficiencies.
posted by schmod at 10:24 AM on October 30, 2015 [12 favorites]
Also, Chrome OS's management and easy-upgrade features are exactly the biggest current deficiencies of Android as an Operating System.
Google are smart enough to realize that Chrome sells well in businesses and schools because it works really well as a managed platform (which is something that very few vendors even attempt to do, let alone execute competently). Those features aren't going away, because losing them would kill the biggest market for Chrome OS.
My guess is that something like this will happen:
1. ART and the Android Frameworks are gradually extracted from the Android OS as independent libraries.
2. Chrome OS gets better at running Android apps.
3. Android picks up some level of support for JavaScript-based applications, to establish a baseline level of bidirectional compatibility.
4. The "core" Android OS continues to shrink.
5. Google invests a big effort into building a device-driver abstraction layer for Chrome OS, which is later ported to Android
6. Chrome OS replaces the base Android operating system entirely
Somewhere along the way, Google announces a new JavaScript or Go-based SDK for Android, and gives Oracle the middle-finger. Support for ART and Java sunsets sometime around 2020.
As a loyal Android user, I can say that Android is kind of a mess, and the open-source aspect of it just... isn't very good. The exact opposite of how you'd want to manage an open-source OS. It makes no sense to fold Chrome OS into Android, but it makes a lot of sense to establish synergies between the two to counter their deficiencies.
posted by schmod at 10:24 AM on October 30, 2015 [12 favorites]
cell divide: "Chromebooks have become the standard laptop in most schools I've worked in or been around, and I know one major fear with school purchases is that the tech company will somehow mess things up. It's happened before"
Reiterating my previous point, this is precisely because they are cheap, efficient, and easy to manage. Providing good input devices, and "restricting" the laptops to a limited set of functionality ends up being huge features in the classroom.
As I mentioned in the TI-83 thread, this is a huge reason why those devices are also still so prevalent. It's not at all surprising that ChromeBooks are outpacing iPads in the classroom.
posted by schmod at 10:32 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Reiterating my previous point, this is precisely because they are cheap, efficient, and easy to manage. Providing good input devices, and "restricting" the laptops to a limited set of functionality ends up being huge features in the classroom.
As I mentioned in the TI-83 thread, this is a huge reason why those devices are also still so prevalent. It's not at all surprising that ChromeBooks are outpacing iPads in the classroom.
posted by schmod at 10:32 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
phooky: "Yo dawg I heard you liked Linux so I folded your Linux into your Linux so you can"
... wonder why you bought either of them in the first place
posted by boo_radley at 10:34 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
... wonder why you bought either of them in the first place
posted by boo_radley at 10:34 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
As Chrome and V8 gather more features, I could also see Chrome Apps becoming a de-facto rapid prototyping solution for Android, given that the current Java workflow is rather cumbersome for new developers to learn.
Java is pretty clearly doomed at this point, so getting out of that mess entirely would be a good idea for Google. Not sure how possible that is given how heavily invested they are in it with Android.
posted by Artw at 10:34 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Java is pretty clearly doomed at this point, so getting out of that mess entirely would be a good idea for Google. Not sure how possible that is given how heavily invested they are in it with Android.
posted by Artw at 10:34 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Not sure I understand this. I generally avoid Chrome (the browser) unless I have to use it but have Android tablet which needs replacing. Is the Android OS as a separate entity likely to go away?
posted by fuse theorem at 10:38 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by fuse theorem at 10:38 AM on October 30, 2015
When I worked at Google, I remember the ChromeOS team being very pleased that ChromeOS could start up faster than Windows could shut down.
posted by w0mbat at 10:41 AM on October 30, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by w0mbat at 10:41 AM on October 30, 2015 [15 favorites]
Prediction: At some point, you'll be able to run iOS apps on your Mac, too. They won't necessarily be the same thing, though.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:43 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:43 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
My take is that the two platforms will start sharing code. If the two platforms eventually merge entirely, it'll basically be unnoticeable when it happens.
posted by schmod at 10:49 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by schmod at 10:49 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
selfnoise: "And this is someone who emails me to ask directions to the airport because she can't figure out Google Maps."
In fairness, the "new" Google Maps interface on the web is appalling counter-intuitive.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:51 AM on October 30, 2015 [9 favorites]
In fairness, the "new" Google Maps interface on the web is appalling counter-intuitive.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:51 AM on October 30, 2015 [9 favorites]
Somewhere along the way, Google announces a new JavaScript or Go-based SDK for Android, and gives Oracle the middle-finger. Support for ART and Java sunsets sometime around 2020.
Android just becomes a combination of a VM/UI running alongside and in combination with Chrome. Neat idea.
My question is what are they going to do about the user file system (or whatever comes next)? Will multiple apps be able to access a photo, for example, and how will that work? The "managed library" paradigm has been a dismal failure, more worked around than observed, yet local file system access is also one of the poorer aspects of Android too. I hope they can figure out a better solution.
posted by bonehead at 10:52 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Android just becomes a combination of a VM/UI running alongside and in combination with Chrome. Neat idea.
My question is what are they going to do about the user file system (or whatever comes next)? Will multiple apps be able to access a photo, for example, and how will that work? The "managed library" paradigm has been a dismal failure, more worked around than observed, yet local file system access is also one of the poorer aspects of Android too. I hope they can figure out a better solution.
posted by bonehead at 10:52 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Prediction: At some point, you'll be able to run iOS apps on your Mac, too. They won't necessarily be the same thing, though.
ARM is getting fast enough and uses less power than Intel chips, such that a long-term switchover to ARM would make sense. While this would make it easier to run iOS apps on future hardware, I'd bet developer inertia is holding Apple back somewhat. It took a long time to get Microsoft and Adobe on board with the PPC-to-Intel switchover, for instance. I'd bet that the changes Apple makes to frameworks, languages and dev tools will probably hint at how quickly ARM-based hardware will come along.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:53 AM on October 30, 2015
ARM is getting fast enough and uses less power than Intel chips, such that a long-term switchover to ARM would make sense. While this would make it easier to run iOS apps on future hardware, I'd bet developer inertia is holding Apple back somewhat. It took a long time to get Microsoft and Adobe on board with the PPC-to-Intel switchover, for instance. I'd bet that the changes Apple makes to frameworks, languages and dev tools will probably hint at how quickly ARM-based hardware will come along.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:53 AM on October 30, 2015
Another vote here for the gradual merging of the two platforms. Schmod's timetable seems perfectly reasonable; I'd just add that at some point soon touch will become de facto on Chromebooks - and that will affect the speed of the OS merge.
I too love my Chromebook to bits. I can't move either of my parents to it, because reasons, but those I have got onto it stop having technical problems, at least with the hardware and OS. I've had one issue with my Chromebook over two years - incomprehensibly, Gmail stopped displaying the inbox message list, just leaving a big blank pane - and after failing to get past the WTF stage I just nuked it. About five minutes later, _everything_ was back without me having to do more than sign into Google again. My other half's Chromebook developed a hardware fault with the touchpad that they found objectionable but didn't bother me, so we swapped - again, five minutes later, it was as if nothing had happened.
I have spent a considerable portion of my adult life bleeding pints of pain over computers, and I have absolutely no doubt that many many Mefites have made that journey too. I count my Chromebook as an actual gift from actual gods.
As long as that continues to be the case, then it will be much to the benefit of both Android and ChromeOS when the merge gathers speed. The chances of this ending up a win for all concerned is, unusually in this game, significantly non-null.
posted by Devonian at 11:03 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
I too love my Chromebook to bits. I can't move either of my parents to it, because reasons, but those I have got onto it stop having technical problems, at least with the hardware and OS. I've had one issue with my Chromebook over two years - incomprehensibly, Gmail stopped displaying the inbox message list, just leaving a big blank pane - and after failing to get past the WTF stage I just nuked it. About five minutes later, _everything_ was back without me having to do more than sign into Google again. My other half's Chromebook developed a hardware fault with the touchpad that they found objectionable but didn't bother me, so we swapped - again, five minutes later, it was as if nothing had happened.
I have spent a considerable portion of my adult life bleeding pints of pain over computers, and I have absolutely no doubt that many many Mefites have made that journey too. I count my Chromebook as an actual gift from actual gods.
As long as that continues to be the case, then it will be much to the benefit of both Android and ChromeOS when the merge gathers speed. The chances of this ending up a win for all concerned is, unusually in this game, significantly non-null.
posted by Devonian at 11:03 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
The thing I really love about ChromeOS is that your entire setup is cloud-based -- extensions, apps, even your fucking desktop wallpaper. If, say, your two-year old somehow manages to perform a factory reset on your device (which he did), you just log back in, wait for your setup to re-download (like ~5 min tops), and it's like nothing ever changed.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:07 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by shakespeherian at 11:07 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Interesting that this comes a day after Palo Alto startup UpThere announced a personal cloud service that's sort of like an operating system of its own- similar to ChromeOS. Total coincidence, just good synchronicity given that UpThere was previously in stealth since 2011.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:34 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by Apocryphon at 11:34 AM on October 30, 2015
Another dedicated Chromebook fan here. I have one of the ARM-based Chromebooks, which I bought refurb from BestBuy a couple of years ago. While it's been slower to boot of late, I still would buy another one if they were available. Being able to pop open a ChromeOS shell and install debian via crouton has been a big win too. Netflix/Hulu video quality is pretty damn good too.
What is missing is support for certain file types (TIF, raw photo formats). Not so much of a problem with Android.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 11:38 AM on October 30, 2015
What is missing is support for certain file types (TIF, raw photo formats). Not so much of a problem with Android.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 11:38 AM on October 30, 2015
I was a beta tester for Chrome OS. One day in December 2010 a Cr-48 showed up at my door and I spent the next several years swatting bugs and sending feedback. I have used Chrome OS exclusively since the summer of 2011 and have never looked back. It is the fastest, most economical, stable and maintenance-free thing I have ever encountered. I would have KILLED for something like this back in my sysadmin days. Little wonder it has enjoyed so much success amongst education, government and nonprofits.
But it's always important to remember that Google is neither a software nor a hardware company (and therefore never in competition with either MS or Apple). It is an advertising company, the source of well over 90% of its revenue and profit. Everything it does and develops is designed to increase the size of the "advertising pie". And the big goldmine for ads right now is mobile, especially in the third world. I doubt they will drop Chrome OS cold (and even then the Chromium OS would likely persist), but as with all things Google, we'll just have to wait and see if there is a new tenant in the Google Graveyard...
posted by jim in austin at 11:47 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
But it's always important to remember that Google is neither a software nor a hardware company (and therefore never in competition with either MS or Apple). It is an advertising company, the source of well over 90% of its revenue and profit. Everything it does and develops is designed to increase the size of the "advertising pie". And the big goldmine for ads right now is mobile, especially in the third world. I doubt they will drop Chrome OS cold (and even then the Chromium OS would likely persist), but as with all things Google, we'll just have to wait and see if there is a new tenant in the Google Graveyard...
posted by jim in austin at 11:47 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
bonehead: "My question is what are they going to do about the user file system (or whatever comes next)? Will multiple apps be able to access a photo, for example, and how will that work? The "managed library" paradigm has been a dismal failure, more worked around than observed, yet local file system access is also one of the poorer aspects of Android too. I hope they can figure out a better solution."
Arguably, nobody's really figured this out (and there have been enough false starts, going all the way back to the early 90s that everybody seems afraid to touch it).
Chrome OS has a filesystem that applications can access and share.
One big problem is that files and interoperable file formats already seem to be dying a quiet death, and many application vendors might not want this sort of access, because there's no profit to be made by allowing that. Another problem is that there's a generally-accepted wisdom that users have difficulty comprehending files. I can't even manage to teach people how to use the Mac OS Finder, even if they are otherwise reasonably technical. Add in the other general trends, where many applications can't even produce files, and the filesystem starts to feel like an ancient artifact that isn't worth learning how to use properly.
I disagree with all of these things, but the current landscape is very frustrating on this front. iOS doesn't even really have any notion of a filesystem, and iCloud is an incomprehensible mess. Computers are rapidly turning into direct-to-consumer content consumption devices.
I now have speakers that are incompatible with certain kinds of music because that music was bought from the wrong store. Just listen to that phrase. It's insane, but that's where we're at.
Say what you want about Google, but they've never made it difficult to get your data out of their systems in a reasonable format.
posted by schmod at 12:05 PM on October 30, 2015 [10 favorites]
Arguably, nobody's really figured this out (and there have been enough false starts, going all the way back to the early 90s that everybody seems afraid to touch it).
Chrome OS has a filesystem that applications can access and share.
One big problem is that files and interoperable file formats already seem to be dying a quiet death, and many application vendors might not want this sort of access, because there's no profit to be made by allowing that. Another problem is that there's a generally-accepted wisdom that users have difficulty comprehending files. I can't even manage to teach people how to use the Mac OS Finder, even if they are otherwise reasonably technical. Add in the other general trends, where many applications can't even produce files, and the filesystem starts to feel like an ancient artifact that isn't worth learning how to use properly.
I disagree with all of these things, but the current landscape is very frustrating on this front. iOS doesn't even really have any notion of a filesystem, and iCloud is an incomprehensible mess. Computers are rapidly turning into direct-to-consumer content consumption devices.
I now have speakers that are incompatible with certain kinds of music because that music was bought from the wrong store. Just listen to that phrase. It's insane, but that's where we're at.
Say what you want about Google, but they've never made it difficult to get your data out of their systems in a reasonable format.
posted by schmod at 12:05 PM on October 30, 2015 [10 favorites]
Yeah the weirdest thing for me about mobile OSes is how you need to download a special program to even access the file structure. But I'm also old.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:14 PM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by shakespeherian at 12:14 PM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Chrome OS gets better at running Android apps.
This has always befuddled me. I know you can run android apps in chrome now... sort of, but why is this so hard? If this was a feature you could even hack in, i would probably buy a chromebook and use it most of the time i needed a not-at-home computer. I'd even support it being some kind of "developer mode" are-you-sure thing where it has to download some libraries after you accept an agreement, and not an out of the box thing. As it is, chrome os doesn't do enough of what i need it to do some of the time to fill that gap. I could plug that hole with android apps, and so could a lot of other people i know.
Another one i don't get is why chromebook hardware is lagging so far behind cheap tablet hardware. You can get a $200 windows 8 tablet with a HiDPI/"retina display" from a chinese brand. Why do chromebooks all have such shitty displays? Yea, sure, they're better than some of the very cheapest windows laptops... but why are they still 720p? There isn't a whole lot more to a chromebook than like, a nexus 7, and yet the latter had a 1080p display several years ago for less money.
Yea, there's the chromebook pixel, but i want the cheap version of that. It doesn't need a metal case, or a fancy CPU, or a touch screen, or any of that stuff. Just a good, high resolution display, and like... a basic current gen intel atom chip(which can handle displays like that quite well).
I really wish google would raise the bar for minimum hardware specs, like, a lot. The lowest display resolution allowed should be 1080p. You can get tablets with a keyboard dock that have displays that resolution or even higher, sometimes much higher, for under or around $200 if they're off-brand. Come ON guys. 720p on tablets is now relegated to sub-$100 junkers, but almost every single chromebook runs that resolution. Even the 14in ones!
posted by emptythought at 1:06 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
This has always befuddled me. I know you can run android apps in chrome now... sort of, but why is this so hard? If this was a feature you could even hack in, i would probably buy a chromebook and use it most of the time i needed a not-at-home computer. I'd even support it being some kind of "developer mode" are-you-sure thing where it has to download some libraries after you accept an agreement, and not an out of the box thing. As it is, chrome os doesn't do enough of what i need it to do some of the time to fill that gap. I could plug that hole with android apps, and so could a lot of other people i know.
Another one i don't get is why chromebook hardware is lagging so far behind cheap tablet hardware. You can get a $200 windows 8 tablet with a HiDPI/"retina display" from a chinese brand. Why do chromebooks all have such shitty displays? Yea, sure, they're better than some of the very cheapest windows laptops... but why are they still 720p? There isn't a whole lot more to a chromebook than like, a nexus 7, and yet the latter had a 1080p display several years ago for less money.
Yea, there's the chromebook pixel, but i want the cheap version of that. It doesn't need a metal case, or a fancy CPU, or a touch screen, or any of that stuff. Just a good, high resolution display, and like... a basic current gen intel atom chip(which can handle displays like that quite well).
I really wish google would raise the bar for minimum hardware specs, like, a lot. The lowest display resolution allowed should be 1080p. You can get tablets with a keyboard dock that have displays that resolution or even higher, sometimes much higher, for under or around $200 if they're off-brand. Come ON guys. 720p on tablets is now relegated to sub-$100 junkers, but almost every single chromebook runs that resolution. Even the 14in ones!
posted by emptythought at 1:06 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wow Schmod, it's analyses like that that bring me back to MetaFilter time and time again. Thanks for the insight.
posted by Zigurana at 1:07 PM on October 30, 2015
posted by Zigurana at 1:07 PM on October 30, 2015
I'd absolutely love it if the file system's access control mechanisms were replaced by a capability-based encrypted content addressable system, think Tahoe-LAFS.
We do however need to control our applications, not the other way around. A typical application should never access your addressbook because that privilege should be reserved for applications that only do addressbook search, manipulation, etc. Anytime you say "find my friend" in say a twitter application it should launch a system dialog that either lets you select the specific contacts you want searched for, maybe only amongst those advertising their twitter ids, but the twitter application should never under any circumstances be granted access to your addressbook.
Android is slightly preferable to handing all your data over to Google servers with Chome OS, but it remains fundamentally broken.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:33 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
We do however need to control our applications, not the other way around. A typical application should never access your addressbook because that privilege should be reserved for applications that only do addressbook search, manipulation, etc. Anytime you say "find my friend" in say a twitter application it should launch a system dialog that either lets you select the specific contacts you want searched for, maybe only amongst those advertising their twitter ids, but the twitter application should never under any circumstances be granted access to your addressbook.
Android is slightly preferable to handing all your data over to Google servers with Chome OS, but it remains fundamentally broken.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:33 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
bonehead: "Android just becomes a combination of a VM/UI running alongside and in combination with Chrome. Neat idea."
I actually wasn't really thinking of it that way, but yeah... There's not a whole lot of reason for Android to be much more than a hypervisor plus a few frameworks. That being said, if you ignore the NDK, Android already largely functions this way, given that most applications already run on top of a JVM.
Interestingly, Linux is also moving in this direction. Containerization is already a very big deal in the server space; not because it offers security (it doesn't, and you shouldn't trust anybody who tells you otherwise), but because it offers a very clean and consistent encapsulations of the exact dependencies that an application needs to run.
Android already has something like this -- an application can import the exact version of the Android SDK that it was developed against, rather than relying on whatever happens to be installed in the OS. For all of Android's faults, new OS releases almost never break existing applications, and the SDK isn't burdened with onerous backward-compatibility restrictions -- it's really an excellent model.
In systemd's really interesting vision for Linux package management, this approach gets standardized and taken a step further (citing ChromeOS and Android as prior art). All user-land applications effectively get run and packaged as containers, and the notion of a Linux "distribution" becomes a lot less relevant, because applications now become individually responsible for explicitly requesting their dependencies instead of hoping that the OS can provide a compatible version of those dependencies.
So, yeah. I could be talking out of my ass about what Google's plans are for Chrome and Android. They might not follow this model at all. However, there's a good chance that others will, and this approach could seriously rejuvenate Linux on the desktop, making it very simple to build a system that acts a lot like Android and Chrome OS.
posted by schmod at 1:53 PM on October 30, 2015
I actually wasn't really thinking of it that way, but yeah... There's not a whole lot of reason for Android to be much more than a hypervisor plus a few frameworks. That being said, if you ignore the NDK, Android already largely functions this way, given that most applications already run on top of a JVM.
Interestingly, Linux is also moving in this direction. Containerization is already a very big deal in the server space; not because it offers security (it doesn't, and you shouldn't trust anybody who tells you otherwise), but because it offers a very clean and consistent encapsulations of the exact dependencies that an application needs to run.
Android already has something like this -- an application can import the exact version of the Android SDK that it was developed against, rather than relying on whatever happens to be installed in the OS. For all of Android's faults, new OS releases almost never break existing applications, and the SDK isn't burdened with onerous backward-compatibility restrictions -- it's really an excellent model.
In systemd's really interesting vision for Linux package management, this approach gets standardized and taken a step further (citing ChromeOS and Android as prior art). All user-land applications effectively get run and packaged as containers, and the notion of a Linux "distribution" becomes a lot less relevant, because applications now become individually responsible for explicitly requesting their dependencies instead of hoping that the OS can provide a compatible version of those dependencies.
So, yeah. I could be talking out of my ass about what Google's plans are for Chrome and Android. They might not follow this model at all. However, there's a good chance that others will, and this approach could seriously rejuvenate Linux on the desktop, making it very simple to build a system that acts a lot like Android and Chrome OS.
posted by schmod at 1:53 PM on October 30, 2015
I bought a cheap Chromebook earlier this year to take on the road on a trip to SE Asia. It was awesome (and also gave me a free onboard WiFi promo on the first leg of the trip from Seattle to Tokyo; it was awesome to not have to worry about how to make up for an extra day of lost copywriting work).
So next I bought a little Asus NUC-style Chromebox with a more powerful chip and more RAM, and that has become my main work computer.
I gave the Chromebook to my wife to replace her aging VAIO laptop, and it works much better for her. I just bought a Dell Chromebook 11 which works *really* well. The only odd thing about it is that since it's powered by an i3 chip it has a cooling fan (despite the SSD), so that's odd.
Almost all of my work is done using Podio, Slack, Google Docs, Gmail and WordPress, so these things suit my needs.
I have a pretty nice Windows laptop, but it doesn't have an SSD and the fan is loud. And Windows OS is slow. And Windows 10 installed on what was an originally W7 machine has some serious glitches.
I'm assuming in 2017 my Chromebooks will be automatically updated to the newest operating system. It seems like making the leap from W7 to W10 anyway, so nothing new really...
posted by Nevin at 1:55 PM on October 30, 2015
So next I bought a little Asus NUC-style Chromebox with a more powerful chip and more RAM, and that has become my main work computer.
I gave the Chromebook to my wife to replace her aging VAIO laptop, and it works much better for her. I just bought a Dell Chromebook 11 which works *really* well. The only odd thing about it is that since it's powered by an i3 chip it has a cooling fan (despite the SSD), so that's odd.
Almost all of my work is done using Podio, Slack, Google Docs, Gmail and WordPress, so these things suit my needs.
I have a pretty nice Windows laptop, but it doesn't have an SSD and the fan is loud. And Windows OS is slow. And Windows 10 installed on what was an originally W7 machine has some serious glitches.
I'm assuming in 2017 my Chromebooks will be automatically updated to the newest operating system. It seems like making the leap from W7 to W10 anyway, so nothing new really...
posted by Nevin at 1:55 PM on October 30, 2015
jeffburdges: "We do however need to control our applications, not the other way around. A typical application should never access your addressbook because that privilege should be reserved for applications that only do addressbook search, manipulation, etc. Anytime you say "find my friend" in say a twitter application it should launch a system dialog that either lets you select the specific contacts you want searched for, maybe only amongst those advertising their twitter ids, but the twitter application should never under any circumstances be granted access to your addressbook. "
So, this is an interesting conundrum. Is your address book even a file?
I think we all generally agree that we can no longer trust applications to have unfettered access to our filesystems.
However, what exactly is your address book? Is it expressed as a file? A directory of files for individual contacts? Is it queried through a system API or a DSL like SQL? Does your address book need to express graph-like relationships that cannot be easily modeled in a traditional filesystem hierarchy? Why should some things be files, but not others? Is there a standard format or schema for address books, and can vendors add extensions to it?
How do we handle applications that effectively function as an alternative to the system address book, and implicitly need to be able to browse all contacts? What if you want to have more than one system address book, and control permissions separately for each? What prevents Twitter from asserting that it needs access to my entire address book -- do we trust developers to not request permission to access the kitchen sink? Should my OS be able to "fake" an empty address book (or a subset of my address book) to Twitter's app if we don't want to let applications hold us hostage in exchange for our data? Is that sort of thing even necessary or feasible from a UI perspective?
Moreover, can we convince developers that their applications should expose their output to the filesystem so it can be consumed by other applications? Instagram doesn't have a huge motive to let me export my photos to upload to a competing service.
These are difficult questions, and I don't think I have answers to any of them. As I alluded to earlier, many have tried, and few have achieved any level of success (BeOS arguably came the closest; it nearly killed Apple; IBM keeps trying and we continue to be cursed with Lotus notes).
posted by schmod at 2:04 PM on October 30, 2015
So, this is an interesting conundrum. Is your address book even a file?
I think we all generally agree that we can no longer trust applications to have unfettered access to our filesystems.
However, what exactly is your address book? Is it expressed as a file? A directory of files for individual contacts? Is it queried through a system API or a DSL like SQL? Does your address book need to express graph-like relationships that cannot be easily modeled in a traditional filesystem hierarchy? Why should some things be files, but not others? Is there a standard format or schema for address books, and can vendors add extensions to it?
How do we handle applications that effectively function as an alternative to the system address book, and implicitly need to be able to browse all contacts? What if you want to have more than one system address book, and control permissions separately for each? What prevents Twitter from asserting that it needs access to my entire address book -- do we trust developers to not request permission to access the kitchen sink? Should my OS be able to "fake" an empty address book (or a subset of my address book) to Twitter's app if we don't want to let applications hold us hostage in exchange for our data? Is that sort of thing even necessary or feasible from a UI perspective?
Moreover, can we convince developers that their applications should expose their output to the filesystem so it can be consumed by other applications? Instagram doesn't have a huge motive to let me export my photos to upload to a competing service.
These are difficult questions, and I don't think I have answers to any of them. As I alluded to earlier, many have tried, and few have achieved any level of success (BeOS arguably came the closest; it nearly killed Apple; IBM keeps trying and we continue to be cursed with Lotus notes).
posted by schmod at 2:04 PM on October 30, 2015
There's not a whole lot of reason for Android to be much more than a hypervisor plus a few frameworks.
Heh. Which is incidentally interesting news for Blackberry. QNX is an excellent, but very minimal kernel.
posted by bonehead at 2:14 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Heh. Which is incidentally interesting news for Blackberry. QNX is an excellent, but very minimal kernel.
posted by bonehead at 2:14 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Should my OS be able to "fake" an empty address book (or a subset of my address book) to Twitter's app if we don't want to let applications hold us hostage in exchange for our data? Is that sort of thing even necessary or feasible from a UI perspective?
I'm an iOS guy so I'm not sure, but isn't there some (jailbroken) utility for Android that does exactly this?
posted by neckro23 at 2:40 PM on October 30, 2015
I'm an iOS guy so I'm not sure, but isn't there some (jailbroken) utility for Android that does exactly this?
posted by neckro23 at 2:40 PM on October 30, 2015
Count me as another whose first reaction to this news was to wonder whether I'd be getting my first tech support request from my mother for the Chromebook I bought her two years ago.
(Technically she did once ask for help in changing which cat photo was on the desktop, but that shouldn't count.)
posted by chimpsonfilm at 3:08 PM on October 30, 2015
(Technically she did once ask for help in changing which cat photo was on the desktop, but that shouldn't count.)
posted by chimpsonfilm at 3:08 PM on October 30, 2015
I'm gratified that there's so much Chromebook love in this thread. We're a tough crowd, and there was a lot of sniffing (not on Metafilter so much) among the cognoscenti when Chromebook turned up at first, but I was immediately sold on the idea as being very precisely the computer for the rest of us, because it solved so many problems that really needed to be fixed. Problems that have been around since year zero.
All my life, I've thought that tech is way cool, but what's cooler is tech that everybody can just use.
posted by Devonian at 3:39 PM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
All my life, I've thought that tech is way cool, but what's cooler is tech that everybody can just use.
posted by Devonian at 3:39 PM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yep. Chromebooks are the new Macs.
And they happen to be excellent managed clients. They're definitely going to be the "dark horse" of computing for the next few years.
posted by schmod at 4:14 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
And they happen to be excellent managed clients. They're definitely going to be the "dark horse" of computing for the next few years.
posted by schmod at 4:14 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
So, does this move mean I will start seeing advertising directly on my Chromebook? If I start seeing splashscreens of ads why I open Drive or Chrome, that will be the end of the road for me.
Probably not. Almost everything Google does outside of advertising is designed to make accessing, using and relying on the internet easier, faster and cheaper. By default, that means more exposure to Google ads which is money in the bank for Google. An example:
Question: If internet access is controlled by near-monopolistic cable providers with low grade speeds and service at usurious prices and who have regulatory capture on the FCC and Congress, how do you expand access?
Answer: Google Fiber. The stuck-pig squeals were audible when Fiber announced here in Austin. And almost immediately speeds went up and prices went down. Mission accomplished. Google doesn't care how you get online as long as you get there, stay there and do everything there...
posted by jim in austin at 5:03 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Probably not. Almost everything Google does outside of advertising is designed to make accessing, using and relying on the internet easier, faster and cheaper. By default, that means more exposure to Google ads which is money in the bank for Google. An example:
Question: If internet access is controlled by near-monopolistic cable providers with low grade speeds and service at usurious prices and who have regulatory capture on the FCC and Congress, how do you expand access?
Answer: Google Fiber. The stuck-pig squeals were audible when Fiber announced here in Austin. And almost immediately speeds went up and prices went down. Mission accomplished. Google doesn't care how you get online as long as you get there, stay there and do everything there...
posted by jim in austin at 5:03 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
jim in austin, here's the complete Google Graveyard. I still miss Google Sets.
The kick in the balls that was killing Google Reader still smarts.
posted by Talez at 5:55 PM on October 30, 2015 [7 favorites]
The kick in the balls that was killing Google Reader still smarts.
posted by Talez at 5:55 PM on October 30, 2015 [7 favorites]
So, does this move mean I will start seeing advertising directly on my Chromebook?
No, it means that Google can collect more information about you to serve you more relevant ads.
The future of ads is supposed to be in mobile apps anyway, so it's unlikely advertising is going to become more intrusive than it already is today.
posted by Nevin at 5:57 PM on October 30, 2015
No, it means that Google can collect more information about you to serve you more relevant ads.
The future of ads is supposed to be in mobile apps anyway, so it's unlikely advertising is going to become more intrusive than it already is today.
posted by Nevin at 5:57 PM on October 30, 2015
3. Android picks up some level of support for JavaScript-based applications, to establish a baseline level of bidirectional compatibility.
From your mouth to Lockheimer's ears. I occasionally tinker with some open source Android apps, and it's always such a pain. Why does it have to be so hard? Especially since a lot of apps are basically front ends for cloud platforms which usually have js/web APIs anyway; would be nice to use the same thing for everything - would seem to make development much more robust. I'm sure there is some deep computer science reason why its not so efficient thus far...
posted by bluefly at 6:43 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
From your mouth to Lockheimer's ears. I occasionally tinker with some open source Android apps, and it's always such a pain. Why does it have to be so hard? Especially since a lot of apps are basically front ends for cloud platforms which usually have js/web APIs anyway; would be nice to use the same thing for everything - would seem to make development much more robust. I'm sure there is some deep computer science reason why its not so efficient thus far...
posted by bluefly at 6:43 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Reading about the simplicity of ChromeOS reminds me that I need to check on my MacOS machine which has been transferring files via Migration Assistant for like 70 hours now. This of course was a solution I was forced into after many hours of messing with the machine.
posted by persona au gratin at 9:35 PM on October 30, 2015
posted by persona au gratin at 9:35 PM on October 30, 2015
We do however need to control our applications, not the other way around. A typical application should never access your addressbook because that privilege should be reserved for applications that only do addressbook search, manipulation, etc. -- jeffburdges
I've heard that the next version of Android (Marshmallow) lets you control permissions, enabling which features an app is allowed access to, no matter what permissions it thinks it should have. So you can keep Facebook from your contacts even if it says it needs access to them. I don't have it, so I can't say for sure how well it works.
posted by eye of newt at 9:36 PM on October 30, 2015
I've heard that the next version of Android (Marshmallow) lets you control permissions, enabling which features an app is allowed access to, no matter what permissions it thinks it should have. So you can keep Facebook from your contacts even if it says it needs access to them. I don't have it, so I can't say for sure how well it works.
posted by eye of newt at 9:36 PM on October 30, 2015
The two platforms drive different devices. But would combining them really be a bad thing?
posted by Artw at 9:48 PM on October 30, 2015
posted by Artw at 9:48 PM on October 30, 2015
> why are they still 720p?
The $300 Toshiba Chromebook 2 has a 13" 1920x1080 IPS display. The IPS makes it much nicer than the 11.6" STN of the $200 Acer C720 it replaced. My mom still uses her C720 because she likes the compact size.
I use Text for writing, saving locally. IPS makes websurfing and Netflix look better, which actually works against the distraction-reduction I bought the Acer for. I want to emulate the Brother EP-43portable typewriter a friend used to use. I'm not looking forward to cheap writing machines getting crapped up with Android. I like my e-Ink Kindle because it can't really do web.
posted by morganw at 5:58 AM on October 31, 2015
The $300 Toshiba Chromebook 2 has a 13" 1920x1080 IPS display. The IPS makes it much nicer than the 11.6" STN of the $200 Acer C720 it replaced. My mom still uses her C720 because she likes the compact size.
I use Text for writing, saving locally. IPS makes websurfing and Netflix look better, which actually works against the distraction-reduction I bought the Acer for. I want to emulate the Brother EP-43portable typewriter a friend used to use. I'm not looking forward to cheap writing machines getting crapped up with Android. I like my e-Ink Kindle because it can't really do web.
posted by morganw at 5:58 AM on October 31, 2015
From your mouth to Lockheimer's ears. I occasionally tinker with some open source Android apps, and it's always such a pain. Why does it have to be so hard? Especially since a lot of apps are basically front ends for cloud platforms which usually have js/web APIs anyway; would be nice to use the same thing for everything - would seem to make development much more robust. I'm sure there is some deep computer science reason why its not so efficient thus far...
Ionic is nice.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 8:35 AM on October 31, 2015
Ionic is nice.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 8:35 AM on October 31, 2015
I've been using a Chromebook for over a year and I love it. Except, I reeealllly wanna play an old copy of SimCity4 my roommate gifted me and so now I want a windows machine...
posted by the lake is above, the water below at 4:50 PM on October 31, 2015
posted by the lake is above, the water below at 4:50 PM on October 31, 2015
I still have a Windows desktop so that I can do Photoshop and Lightroom stuff and gaming but for browsing and writing and such, it's the Chromebook.
posted by octothorpe at 7:35 PM on October 31, 2015
posted by octothorpe at 7:35 PM on October 31, 2015
Oh and I use the Chromebook for coding too. Either using Crouton/Ubuntu locally or remoting into the Raspberry PI.
posted by octothorpe at 4:50 AM on November 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 4:50 AM on November 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Today: Chrome OS is here to stay:
While we’ve been working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems, there's no plan to phase out Chrome OS.posted by GuyZero at 10:43 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
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