Looking at Google’s Chrome OS demos today, I noticed a giant omission that bodes ill for its future: it’s not optimized for touchscreens.
Chrome looks like a nifty version of a desktop OS, like a version of OS X or Windows, that pulls a lot of data from the cloud. Yeah, it’s slick, thoughtful and forward thinking, at least in one sense: Cloud apps are clearly the future, so why not the OS also?
But it looks like a traditional WIMP OS (window, icon, menu, pointing device). Why isn’t Chrome optimized for finger controls? The future of computing is mobile devices; and the future of mobile devices is touchscreens. As far as I can tell, Google didn’t mention touch at all, and none of the press asked about it.
Google says the Chrome OS will be launched by this time next year, by which time Apple will probably have reinvented the mobile computing experience with a multitouch tablet.
Apple’s tablet will do for netbooks what the iPhone did for cell phones — make the competition look hopelessly antiquated, whatever OS they run. Google says the UI is still under development and is subject to change; they’ll have to change it radically if they want a chance of competing with Apple, which has already adapted Snow Leopard for touchscreens.
Like Steve Jobs says, quoting hockey player Wayne Gretzky, Google needs to be aiming for where the puck’s going to be, not where it’s at now.
A negative review of the Archos 5 Internet tablet by gadget blog T3 may provide an opening for Apple’s rumored tablet. Unlike the Apple tablet, expected to launch in January using the iPhone operating system, the Archos 5 tablet is powered by Google’s Android – a concept that “just doesn’t add up.”
“This is essentially the Archos 5 media tablet with an OS reskin. Think the Toshiba TG01 and its reskin of Windows Mobile,” T3 wrote.
Don't call it a comeback. The Newton and iPhone @http://www.mediabistro.com/mobilecontenttoday
After a 15-year hiatus, Apple has taken Newton Tablet developer Michael Tchao back into the fold.
Tchao, once part of the original Newton team, will now be a vice president of product marketing.
Steve Dowling, the Apple spokesman who confirmed the hire did not say exactly what the man who helped create the grandfather of PDAs will be doing in Cupertino.
The NYT speculates that he’ll be helping define the market for an Apple tablet; though they can’t resist calling the Newton a “groundbreaking but failed personal digital assistant. ” (Most other takes, including ours, say the product was axed when Steve Jobs returned.)
It’s not such a big jump from the Apple tablet to Tchao’s most recent gig, serving as general manager of Nike Techlab, which designed armbands and running shoes to integrate with iPods.
It’s just as easy, for now at least, to speculate he’ll be doing more in-house integration with these devices.
Like Apple, Microsoft is rumored to be working on a touchscreen tablet. Hopefully it won't resemble this earlier effort.
Like Apple, Microsoft is developing on a touchscreen tablet, several sources say.
CoM has heard rumors that Microsoft has a touchscreen tablet in the works. 9to5Mac is reporting that Microsoft is working on a tablet (and two touchscreen phones to compete with the iPhone).
Mary-Jo Foley at ZDNet has some details: Microsoft’s tablet effort is being led by James Allard, the Microsoft executive in charge of the XBox and Zune, and members of Microsoft’s Surface team, Foley reports.
