I really like what Google is doing with Chrome, Android and all their services. Now it looks like we will get Google Now on Chrome for desktop too. That means that I can have the excellent Google Now service on my Mac too. That is just awesome.
One of the things I miss after switching from iOS to Android is iCloud and iCloud syncing. But Google is adding more and more of the same features in Chrome instead. So we have the same syncing, notifications and all the Google services synchronized between all our devices. Even on iOS devices and Macs.
So soon we will have the total Google experience on desktop too. Combine that with Android, and you actually get a more enjoyable and useful experience than you get with iCloud.
I have many times talked about that I don’t think that Chrome OS will work for professional users that need to have advanced apps for video editing and music making for example. I still don’t think the Cloud is fast and good enough for that. For example I edit and upload 3-4GB to youtube everyday, that would be impossible to do on Chrome OS using Cloud only.
But in 5 years or so, maybe that will be possible to edit 1080p full HD video in the Cloud. But the technology evolve too, and soon we will edit 4K video, and then the Cloud will be too slow again. There is already rumors circulating on the web about coming mobile phones that can record video in 4K resolution.
So I don’t think Chrome OS and the Cloud will ever be the ideal way to work for professional users that do these kind of work.
Google also released the Chromebook Pixel to show off how good a Chromebook can be. Sadly it is way too expensive. I would never pay so much money for such great built hardware just running a web browser.
But if Google has released a smaller, thinner and lighter, like the 11-inch MacBook Air Chromebook Pixel instead, then Google could have invented a new kind of device. A new breed, a new category. A portable device with a touch sensitive display, and a keyboard attached, that is running a web OS (Chrome OS), and having it’s own app store (Chrome Web Store). And of course to a better price, then Google could have been onto something here. It would have been a device between a tablet and an ultrabook.
With the right price, size and weight, I still think that the Chromebook could be a device to count on in the future.
And by the way, maybe Andy Rubin now secretly will work on merging Android with Chrome OS, so that Google will have one OS, running on many different kind of devices. That would be something.
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