It appears that I am going to go through this about once every two or three weeks. That is the flitting back and forth across the line of whether I think the Google ChromeOS makes sense or not. And if it does make sense, where am I going to use it? I recently went back and looked at some of the articles on the OS, and some of the videos and commentary by other bloggers, in an attempt to reassess where I am on this thing. Right now, I am back on the side of it not making sense.
One of the videos I watched was this one over on YouTube, which made the rounds about a month ago. While I may not be entirely opposed to the concept of the browser-based OS, this video pushed me back onto the naysayer side of the fence because of some of the assumptions it makes about users. Of course, the main dichotomy is that the video is likely making assumptions based on the average user, and I am not sure that I fall into that category.
The first premise is that the OS will be a best fit for users that spend 90% of their time on the web. There are a few ways to interpret the assumption as it is stated. The speaker caveats the assumption with a "if you are like me". Just to be combative, I could assume that Google is trying to say that this is true of most users, but I'll take the angle just as it is put, that the fit applies if you are a user like the speaker. Which I am not. While connectivity is important to me (the two most important things about an apartment or house I am going to live in is the stability of its electrical power, and the stability of the internet pipes coming into the place), I have insisted on being able to function without it.
I do a lot of local archiving offline. I keep important things on a thumb-drive. Most things I need to function as far as data artifacts are maintained on my NAS. I have gradually shifted to some cloud-based tools, but this is predominantly because I am a multi-computer user. The only reason I have items based in the cloud now is so that when I start a project on one PC, I can access that project when I am on a different PC. But I used to do this by storing the files on a thumb-drive, and could do so again.
I have traveled a lot and still spend a good chunk of time on the road. So I can not be entirely dependent on the web and internet access. I have to have locally stored and installed apps. The speaker talks about email. I always download email locally. I have one account that I leave in the cloud, but that is about it. I rely mostly on my smartphones for my current email, and then periodically download it locally. I am not dependent on Gmail. I do not chat frequently, mostly because most of my friends are not that PC-based. Texting has become much more prevalent in my life than online chats. Reading news? Yes, I use the web for it. But the frequent access that I need most readily is, again, based in my smartphones.
The other items he discusses I do almost entirely out of the cloud-realm. While I do stream movies from NetFlix from time to time, I spend a lot more time consuming video entertainment from tangible media sources. I play very few games that require internet access on the PC to play. Most of these are retail games that I have purchased on optical media that require a check-in via Steam. But again, it is not an actual browser that I need for that functionality. The one use I guess that I am absolutely dependent on my browser for is purchasing items. However, that only extends to major items of significant expense that are tangible products. Things like movie tickets and music I buy via my cell phones or iTunes, not in my browser.
Where he talks about the new innovations that have led to the rise of the eminence of the browser, I only actively participate in two of the four, blogging and micro-blogging. The latter I do much more so from my smartphones than my PC. Social networking and YouTube-as-a-hobby are still PC-based events that have not interested me.
The video goes on to discuss a lot of the issues with boot-times and the performance overhead of managing critical computing resources and infrastructure. It is hard for me to imagine people who still boot their PCs frequently. Pretty much the only time I boot my PCs is when I go on or return from travel, and that is usually just the PC that I am taking with me and returning. My laptops remain in standby and are available about 5 seconds after I pop the lids. I am all for faster boot times, but I can not say that straddling myself with an anemic, under-powered OS is justification to shave 35 to 40 seconds off of my boot time.
And that is the thing that would most hamper me in terms of real-world productivity; the fact that, in most cases, a cloud-based tool inherently under-perform a locally installed equivalent. I do not think that I could ever propose that a web-based tool, that has to overcome latency and packet transfers, would ever rank ahead of a local tool that leverages a PC or Mac's hardware performance. I am never going to go to editing my photos via Flickr or Picasa's online tools over iPhoto or Photoshop or Nero. I am never going to edit audio via an online tool instead of Garage Band. Windows Movie Maker has left my bag of tools as it is now only available via Windows Live. A cloud-based productivity infrastructure, at least today, is simply not as robust as a locally based one. As I look at my own uses of cloud-based tools, I have migrated to them for the simple tasks, most of them text-based, that do not require a lot of performance. But I still do too many things in the multi-media space for a cloud-focused OS to ever be my primary computing platform.
I am aware that Google is going to allow some level of caching so that you can still work locally. As I see it, this will be an allowance that will have much more strict ceilings than I have on any of my current machines. As far as other general users, of course the OS effectively eliminates rural and underprivileged communities who are still trying to get reliable connectivity to the extent that the ChromeOS will depend upon.
Where I do see this OS making sense for me is residing in a MiD of some type. I have the purchase of such a device on my technology roadmap, and this is an environment that I can see myself stomaching a dependence on connectivity. This, of course, would be because I would not have as heavy a requirement on productivity from this device; it will predominantly used for consumption. And this is where I currently see the ChromeOS making sense. In spaces and for users that are primarily focused on consumption and online interaction. For "power users" or whatever we are calling non-generalist PC users these days, ChromeOS might be a good fit in companion devices that are used for consumption. Funny that Android is being deployed as a solution by hardware vendors for that application, and it wil be interesting to see where and when the ChromeOS will be preferable to Google's own Android. When it comes to actually creating content, multi-media development, and productivity, locally installed and embedded OS' and apps will continue to be where I need to be.
- Vr/Z..>>