Chrome OS Introduces Aura Window Manager

An anonymous reader writes "Don't look now, but Google has officially revealed their intentions to go after Windows and OS X. Chrome OS 19 has arrived for Samsung Series 5 and Acer AC700 Chromebooks running the developer channel, and the changes it brings may shock you. The new Aura window manager has landed, bringing with it a number of features that you'd expect from a traditional OS. For starters, there’s the Shelf along the bottom of the screen. It’s set to hide when you’ve got a browser window maximized by default, but you can choose to have it always on top or auto-hide, too, just like the Windows taskbar or OS X dock."

Comments

Still working on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It surprises me they are still working on Chrome OS. Its probably not too bad, but I don't exactly see a huge demand for it, especially since they also have android which would work nearly as well for what they want to do with Chrome OS.

I kinda wish they pushed for Wave harder. That looked like something I would use.

Re:Still working on it.

[jmorris42]

Yea, worst of all worlds. It only runs web apps but few are so totally 100% always on that they are going to be comfortable with that. So now they add a desktop but it has fewer apps than any other possible system and will for a while unless they dump a ton of cash into it. Even Linux (as in a typical Linux/GNU/X distribution) has tons more apps.

The problem is the whole net centrism of Chrome OS. By definition it can't offer anything that any other platform that can run Chrome the browser can't also run. So that means anything developed for Chrome OS also runs everywhere Chrome the browser runs. Which means Chrome the OS, by definition, runs a pure subset of what every other Chrome the browser platform can run. Every other platform gets 100% of Chrome OS's app pool + it's own. And since they were stupid enough to put Intel chips in the machines they don't even get a power/battery life advantage. In fact an ARM based netbook/laptop running Linux + Chromium (Don't think Chrome itself is available on Linux/ARM but the unofficial Chromium almost certainly is.) probably would be a better deal

Re:Still working on it.

[kiwi_james]

I think you're missing the point. Chrome OS is not really for consumers - it's for Enterprises and Educational institutions.

These groups want a device that is highly secure, low / no maintenance and can be given to any random employee / student without much thinking about it. Add in the Enteprise controls that are available through a simple Web GUI and you can massively simplify the management and operation of your IT assets.

Is it something you give to your accountants or marketing team - no. Is it something you give to people working in the field or call centre staff or students - yes it is.

When you think of it this way, then Chrome OS is quite a unique solution and not worth the slamming that everyone here is giving it. There are some valid questions about how much of this could be folded into Android - but at present it has value, just probably not to you.

Re:Still working on it.

[jmorris42]

> it's for Enterprises and Educational institutions.

In other words, wouldn't they be happier with TERMINALS? That is what we are talking about after all, reinvent terminals and centralized computing, the priesthood and all that stuff people snuk in Apple ][ machines all those years ago to escape from? Only instead of VT102 escape codes we are using HTML5 on much more capable terminals. And now there is a cool video by some hipster douche telling us we don't want a computer anymore, we just want to use Google's instead of a blue suited IBM rep selling a mainframe.

But it is the same siren song, users with computers is dangerous, expensive, etc. Let US take all that away... for low monthly payments.

Re:Still working on it.

[Anthony Mouse]

The problem is the whole net centrism of Chrome OS. By definition it can't offer anything that any other platform that can run Chrome the browser can't also run. So that means anything developed for Chrome OS also runs everywhere Chrome the browser runs. Which means Chrome the OS, by definition, runs a pure subset of what every other Chrome the browser platform can run. Every other platform gets 100% of Chrome OS's app pool + it's own.

You're ignoring how that can be a significant advantage. The alternative is what you want when you're Microsoft: You want your platform to run everything everyone else's can and then a lot more, because the more stuff runs on your platform and not others, the less people are able to switch. But that only works when you're already in the dominant market position -- adding some cool API or whatever is close to useless if the only way you can use it is if all your customers have ChromeOS and nobody does.

Now look at it from the other side: Suppose you make it so Chrome on Windows and OS X does everything Chrome OS can do. OK, now you convince some companies that it would be a good idea to write their custom business application against Chrome -- that way it will run on all major platforms, and for the few users who need only that application, you can buy them a Chrome OS computer which is cheaper and practically immune to viruses. Which provides the thin end of the wedge: Get people using Chrome OS in a limited capacity and the next custom business application that comes around for a refresh gets "works on our existing Chrome OS machines" as a requirement. Five or ten years later, everything businesses do works on Chrome OS and they start wondering what sense it makes paying money for Windows licenses.

Re:Still working on it.

[slack_justyb]

In other words, wouldn't they be happier with TERMINALS?

I'm with you, of course, I'm of the opinion that the trends are but a pendulum between central and distributed. I'd say we're still on the waxing side of the central ethos, but give it time and people will eventually want their data back.

However, I think it's all pretty neat. I for one am tired of the two decades of Microsoft that we are waking up from. People are seeing that the field of computers is much more diverse (which comes as no surprise for the people here on Slashdot, but now Grandma is asking "PC or Mac?")

We all are thinking "yawn" but c'mon, the industry needed a big shake up, and while technically we all here see this becoming nothing more than what we had in the 1970. We are changing the vendor from being one to anyone on the Intertubes. We are changing the equipment from being just a terminal to anything that can have a web browser. We are changing the people who create the content from those locked in a warm basement with punch cards, to a varity of diverse people from artist to programmers and everything in between. However, more importantly, this is showing the general consumer that there isn't just one computer to rule them all.

Slashdot users can smirk all they want about how this was already crystal clear to us, but the fact that even Microsoft's position is now challenged, forecasters say that Apple cannot stay at the top, and Google is all over the place unpredicable; means that the rule of alpha vendor may just be in fact ending, hopefully.

Re:Still working on it.

[Artifakt]

If you're going to be precise, we're not talking a move back to dumb terminals with Chrome, but a less restrictive move to more specialized computing devices instead of a general purpose computer. We are discussing putting limits on users, and limits that many here on slashdot would chafe under, but they aren't as drastic as the terms you chose.

For one thing, an OS such as Windows already has some of the same limits. Using the box for art may mean either a lot of expense for a legitimate copy of Photoshop or running pirated copies, or using something like the Gimp that may not be compatable with the next service pack and may never have good support. High prices for lots of business, math or music software similarly mean a lot of users can't afford to legally build the tool that can focus on some of those "General Purpose" uses. Keeping system hooks and APIs and such secret is a separate cause of making machines into non-general purpose computers, or specialty boxes, or whatever you want to call them. Apple's walled garden approach is effectively a vector pointed away from "General Purpose" computers in similar ways. Even Linux has some of this problem when you look at the whole package, i.e. what people mean by saying designers are 'dumbing down' the Gnome interface is precisely the same as saying they think less variety of purposes are suitable under it.

However, if you call those limited boxes terminals, I suspect the people pushing Chrome OS, Cloud Computing, and other things will both point out the differences from those old 'green on black texty thingees' until the similarities are obscured, and keep treating the base Windows or OS X type system as though it were a totally pure "General Computing" environment and the browser based systems were just a small step down from that purity. We do better to stress that even the baseline OSes have many, many points where they veer away from the idea of supporting a box that can do anything the user wants, (at least if it has the raw computing power to handle that task). Most users have run into the problem of not being able to do some task or other any better, even on a much more powerful machine than they once used. Or they remember being able to do something on an older machine that they can't do at all anymore. Warning them that these browser focused 'solutions' will have more of that sort of problem is something many of them will understand.

About Aura

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the relevant info about Aura.