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Why You Should Worry About the Future of Chromebooks
dcblogs writes "PC manufacturers may try to corral Chromebook, much like Netbooks, by setting frustratingly low hardware expectations. The systems being released from HP, Acer, Lenovo and Samsung are being built around retro Celeron processors and mostly 2 GB of RAM. By doing so, they are targeting schools and semi-impulse buyers and may be discouraging corporate buyers from considering the system. Google's Pixel is the counter-force, but at a price of $1,299 for the Wi-Fi system, reviewers, while gushing about hardware, believe it's too much, too soon. The Chromebook is a threat to everything, especially PC makers, as its apps improve. Compare Tweetdeck's HTML5 version with its native app. Can you tell the difference? It might be a year or two before Adobe delivers Web-only versions of its products, but if it doesn't it will be surrendering larger portions of its mindshare to users of Pixlr, Pixel Mixer, PicMonkey and many other interesting and increasingly capable tools."
And then when it fails to bring money it gets discontinued. And you have a very expensive paperweight... Google Reader was an eye opener. Depending on a third party for core functionality is something I'll be avoiding from now one, since you never know...
Sorry but web apps could be 100% perfect. That's fine but only if you have a web connection. Yes, some apps at least have an offline mode but you get minimal storage even on Google high-end chromebook which is even more off-putting because you're paying macbook prices for something inferior to a macbook (no a touch screen doesn't add anything of real value). There is still a lot of real work, like development which seem impossible to do on a chromebook. Some businesses do use them but from what I see they're throw-away devices used for people only really need to write "word docs" on google docs and email. I don't think anyone would trust it for much else and I don't blame them. It's like a handicapped version of linux.
Just because something is new doesn't magically make it better. HTML5 isn't a silver bullet that magically makes everything better; in fact Adobe makes desktop applications because that's what makes sense to do, *not* because it's the latest fad.
At any rate, have fun uploading 20 gig videos to the cloud before editing them. I'll stick with Final Cut on my Mac, thanks.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Compare Tweetdeck's HTML5 version with its native app. Can you tell the difference?
No, because I'm still using Tweetdeck 0.38.1. I tried the newer version, but every so often it just decides it doesn't want to pull updates anymore.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
We are about to begin the process of travelling back in time. Back to a time when PCs were for experts: people who coded, people who needed specialist tools and people who wanted to tinker.
The good news in this transition is that we may get back to buying a PC that is geared to what we want rather than being full of junk that tech-illiterates need (specifically in the OS). If MS don't want to provide that experience (and evidence suggests that they don't) then we will just all wipe the machines and put linux on them.
The bad news is that we will also travel back in time with the price of a PC. Inflation has ran at 3-5% for the last 25 years (give or take a couple of years), yet the cost of a baseline PC has more than halved in that time. That scale only comes with the addition of the tech-illiterate (& Chinese assembly) - once they buy pixibooks and tablets we will be left to pick up the full price for our dedicated high power PCs. The only possible depression on prices is corporate buying, but it can't be too long before they create a stable lightweight environment to get the bulk of corporate work done instead of buying a workstation for every desk.
The Chromebook is a threat to everything, especially PC makers, as its apps improve. Compare Tweetdeck's HTML5 version with its native app.
It's a thin client. Chrome OS is not likely to put a dent in my plans to continue buying PCs until Google can guarantee complete network coverage everywhere and HTML5 apps are written that can replace complex native apps like Photoshop and the likes. There is a world of difference between Tweetdeck and really complex native apps. Then there is the issue of all my data residing on 3rd party data-center which might get hacked, data mined by the service provider without my permission, destroyed in an unseasonal flood disaster or just discontinued because the service failed to meet profitability goals. Nobody is going to discontinue the SSD in my laptop due to its failure to meet some corporate weasels profitability expectation any time soon and the same goes for my backup disks.
Every few years there seems to be a push to get people to accept these ass-backwards computers. Apparently the software companies love the concept of users being held captive to them and requiring their permission just to run the simplest application. "Renting" software on a per usage basis is like their wettest dream.
I remember back in the day, Oracle was pushing these "Net Computers" or NCs as being the future. Nobody needs to run software from their own hard drive, you can just get everything from the Net! Except for the fact people's hard drives were 4 orders of magnitude faster than their internet connection (and will continue to be so for any foreseeable future). Nobody ended up buying this shit and it went into the dustbin of history.
But looks like they're trying it again, except now it's been renamed "cloud computing".
The decision that "privacy is dead" happened over a decade ago. Or, do you not remember Scott McNealy, former chairman of Sun Microsystems, who in 1999 said, "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." And the observation by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: "The privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion. All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy." ??
Privacy gets in the way of money, and money is a means of attaining and exercising power. Throw in the alarming statistic about CEO psychopaths, and you have what ails our world today.
Government has no incentive whatsoever to intervene here, because they also directly profit from stomping on privacy. Look at this editorial for instance. Unless the politicos are themselves harmed by the loss of privacy, they have no incentive to protect it, and every reason to trample all over it instead.
The cleary proscribed solution to this problem is to exploit the fuck out of this surveylance society they are working oh so hard to make, and put THEM under the spotlight. It is the only way to get the retractions on positions and rulings required to halt the slide downhill. The leaders are only concerned with themselves, as is true of all psychopaths. You have to make them feel the fires too to get them motivated to do what is right, and they will bitch mightily about it the whole time.
Amusingly, that's what orgs like wikileaks aimed to do. We saw how that's worked for the likes of Assange. (Yes, he is the very definition of douche, but a douche that exposed a lot of dirty dealing, and pissed in a lot of cheerios, which is exactly what was needed, and is still desperately needed.)
The same broken concept of crippled terminal type computers seems to have been repeated so many times over the past 30 years (time I have been in IT). The chromebook is just yet another attempt at a concept that consumers have shown repeatedly they don't want. I really expect (and hope) chromebooks also end up on the trash heap of bad ideas just like all the previous versions, the concept seems more aimed at what software and advertising companies want not what users need or want.
It used to be that I'd use a web browser for websites and specialized applications to access other services like email and newsgroups.
Now I read my email in a browser, but websites are always asking me to install an app to view them!
If that isn't a sign of the end-times, what is?
Yes. That's rather the point of the variety of offline-related APIs that have been pushed as web standards by -- largely though not solely -- Google and which are supported by ChromeOS (and, for that matter, Chrome and a number of browsers on other OS's, too.)
1^googleplex is still 1. Just sayin'
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
Chromebooks are awesome for non tech folks. Buy one for your parents and you'll never get another tech support call. I'd call the $249 Chromebook a deal for what you get. Yes they do have slots for more storage including USB. Stop trying to cram Linux on something just because you can. Great you installed Linux, now what? Meanwhile people are using them for their intended purpose. If you want a real laptop then buy one. I'll never understand the Chromebook hate on here.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Because Chromebooks are exactly zero threat to any of the three established operating systems. It's all hype, smoke and mirrors. If people want a lightweight computer, the iPad and its Android counterparts are right there, priced well and offering all manner of ergonomic amenities superior to any lap-anything... even if you need to type seriously, a cheap bluetooth keyboard and you're going. If, on the other hand, someone actually needs a laptop, it'll be to run software X; and a Chromebook... won't. Best you can say for them is they can be crowbarred to run linux; but we already know how linux laptops fare in the marketspace. Not well. Chromebooks are simply a bad idea, DOA, FUBAR and catastrophically late to the party.
What you want to be paying attention to at this point in time is Google Glass. Now that is likely to change your life. You won't like it, either.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
For the first time in human history, Microsoft may break their "every other product sucks" cycle by releasing two crappy OSes in a row. So they're just in time for massive non-MS tablet and phone adoption where everyone and their grandma knows how to operate an android interface. Apple already doubled their market share during Vista time. Ubuntu is (debatably) getting more useable by the average Joe. Now Chromebooks come in a non-toy, actual business-use device that's cheap. Thin terminals are an incredible, unbelievably, immensely stupid solution but a monitor and terminal is like $200 so tada, call centers and places run by cheapos use them. So Chromebooks at $250, most people know how to operate one, and it runs useful apps? The tipping point is when 3rd party mega-suites start releasing alternate OS versions of their client software. Right now it's basically VPN/RDP or native Windows for CRMs and stuff. But Driven and Fishbowl and Quickbooks all have Android apps so, bye bye MS.
In reality, they have the money. They'll fire every other person in charge of UI design and planning and make something their customers actually want by Windows 10. I just hope, FOR ONCE, they learn their lesson permanently! Considering the every other cycle is since Windows 3.1, that's doubtful.