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My guess- Google's goal is to replace all of the MacBooks that their employees use internally. That's 40,000 sales right there. They know that they need a high
by randomfool 14y ago
My guess- Google's goal is to replace all of the MacBooks that their employees use internally. That's 40,000 sales right there. They know that they need a high quality machine- no one wants to be sitting in meetings with chintzy hardware.
Furthermore, with the recent Java-based Facebook & Apple attacks it's becoming apparent that OSX is becoming a significant hacking target. Google already ditched Windows for security concerns (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html#axzz2La6ZRVoz http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab4...).
In short- this is a Google Employee computer, that they happen to be selling to the public.
- jrajav 14y agoPerhaps a Chromebook would work great for a Javascript or Dart developer, but what about C++, Java, or Android? Or even Go? I'm curious how well Google dogfooding Chromebooks would work out.
- esrauch 14y agoGoogle developers are not allowed to ever have any code copied to laptops due to security concerns. The laptops that they give devs are mainly for ssh, remote desktop and browser usage already.
- rodolphoarruda 14y agodon't they use Eclipse IDE or alikes? (honest question)
- hamax 14y agoYes, on workstations. Not on laptops.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bryne 14y agoThis (and the top parent) are the only reasoned, insightful comments I've seen about the Pixel all day. If you have to be on a laptop, the screens on the new Macbook Pros are simply a joy to use - as long as you aren't mucking with bitmaps too much, the clarity of web and code is really unmatched, eyestrain is greatly reduced. Within the above restrictions (laptop, must be a locked/stripped-down OS), the Chromebook Pixel begins to make a lot more sense as an attractive laptop option.
- dunham 14y agoWhen I'm writing code, I need a proper keyboard and a nice, big desktop monitor (preferably two). I still use a laptop, but it's hooked to a keyboard/monitor for the majority of my work. When I do have to work directly on the laptop, I find it much less comfortable and slower. This is due to both screen real-estate and ergonomics. Your mileage may vary. At the moment I'm primarily doing iOS and Java development (for a GWT web app), so I'm dealing with Eclipse, XCode, the iOS simulator, and a few browser windows. The secondary screen tends to be where I park reference material, IM, and sometimes logs. Eclipse likes to have a lot of pixels, but is a necessary evil to make Java development bearable. How does Google deal with Java IDE's? Remote desktop?
- codeka 14y agoThis wouldn't be the primary development device. This is what you take to meetings and on the train. Googlers all have pretty beefy development workstations for the "real" work.
- lawdawg 14y agoThis. Google is the perfect example of a company that runs primarily on Google products (GMail, Docs, etc) and even devs don't use their laptops for more than just ssh, remote desktop, and their browser (at least, in theory, they shouldn't need to). Plenty of companies that are in similar situations will find that the Chromebook Pixel is the perfect device for a lot of their employees. That said, the Pixel is still a niche device and I don't think Google is expecting it to be more than that. There wasn't even any hype leading up to this announcement, just a simple blog post. That's not the type of thing you do if you are announcing, what you think is, a game changing device.