Google Chrome vs Google Chrome OS

07.10.2009 // Featured Articles, Tech // Lukasz // 4 Comments

I think that Google has become so common that it may even be a real nerds, child’s first word. I know that I use the phrase, “just google it” at least once a month. Google has become such a powerful and useful tool you can pretty much replace many different apps you use on a daily with the apps they have. Google has created cloud based technology to create word documents, spreadsheets, e-mail, plus many others that are part of your life. I use my gmail account more than my own websites email because its just that easy and fast on my iPhone and in any browser. I being able to share a spreadsheet that auto updates anytime you or the people shared with it use it. So now how will Google Chrome simplify my life? How will Google Chrome OS make the things I do on a computer slick, minimal and almost so easy you really have to be a child to not know how to use it? Most of the tech video’s I saw today were all related to Google Chrome and I think its really starting to make a solid impact on the tech community.

Since I have VM Ware running Vista Ultimate, I can use the browser and really see how it compares to Safari on OSX as well as Firefox. Off the bat its hits really nice for me. The U.I. is delicious. The colors are warm and the typeface that they chose is timeless. Choosing to layout the tabs on top vs. below your typical search and various toolbars is different but welcoming. Its such a perfect flow, the tab is clear, the address/search bar is right under it with your typical forward, back, refresh buttons and below that you have all your bookmarks. For those of you that ran Safari 4 beta you are familiar with this, (I want it back with the official release!). I like the way the taps slide in when you create a new tab and how smooth they are. You can drag them in and out and re-arrange them all by clicking and dragging. There are a few other features such as inconito mode, the advanced downloads and application windows (creates a desktop bookmark and launches the web app or site into Chrome) that really just add that much more dynamic to this simple browser.

With the announcement of Google Chrome OS, it makes me really itch to know more about it. Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba are all working with Google to lead the giant into the operating system realm. All these little and giant companies have low-power chipsets and I wonder if that was a big decision in not adding Dell and Sony to the mix. Since they are partnering with Adobe, is the OS going to be running heavy in Action Script and Flash? (I hope so!) What really intrigues me is that his is going to be a Free OS and its going to be based around their web browser which I think is very interesting. In today’s market you are seeing more apps coming to the cloud like photoshop express, indabamusic.com which is an online music session recording site, googles own spreadsheets and word docs and so many more it really makes sense to have an OS that is not heavy, almost featureless on your desktop and full of everything you need in the cloud. In my opinion this is what Web 3.0 is going to be.