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Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS
- webwright 17y agoThat is, quite literally, one of the better things on the Internet.
- robotron 17y agoGuess I'm the only one that finds this not very funny.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- pavelludiq 17y agoIts a little funny, but completely tasteless.
- seiji 17y agoMaybe one is not enlightened enough to fully understand its brilliance? "Ours started out 20 years ago, at NeXT. You could say it goes back to 1977, with the BSD guys. Heck, you could even say it goes back to 1969 with Dennis Thompson and Lionel Ritchie."
- robotron 17y agoI "get" it, but the delivery falls flat like a stand-up comedian that makes the audience uncomfortable because no one is laughing. At least that's how it is in my head.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- omnipresent1 17y agosome of it actually makes sense. how is google going to make money from this?
- TrevorJ 17y agoEyeballs. Couple that with data mining and targeted ads and you end up with something that doesn't really fall outside Google's tried-and-true business model.
- sjs382 17y agoBy driving more eyeballs to the web and away from desktop apps.
- gaius 17y agoReally? So you'll be working away, on your document or your spreadsheet, or you'll be playing a game, and some ad will pop up, and off you go, zero attention span? Why would anyone want that? $50 on your Netbook isn't much if it means you hand your thesis in on time...
- omnipresent1 17y agoIt'll be worse than office assistant paper clip.
- sjs382 17y agoNo, not really. I doubt there will be ads in Docs & Spreadsheets. But there ARE and WILL BE ads in Gmail* and Google search results. The main idea is to keep you in Google's ecosystem and to make advertising on the web more valuable. Selling advertisings isn't about creating new places to put ads--it's about making advertising space more valuable. And that isn't as straightforward as you seem to think. :) * And adsense ads in apps that others create.
- netsp 17y agoIt still sounds pretty far removed. Release an OS that will drive traffic to your spreadsheet app that will drive traffic to your search engine where you can sell ads. *Gmail still doesn't really makes much money.
- enomar 17y ago"Because Chrome is shit. Just utter, utter shit. I mean they've got all these big brains at Google and you'd think they could make a decent fucking browser. Jesus, the freetards at Mozilla can do it. But not Google. Nope. They gave it their big best effort and what did they come up with? Chrome. It's a joke." Seriously? Maybe I'm missing the satire or hyperbole here, but I really don't see it that way. Chrome on Windows is one of the fastest, most stable browsers I've ever used. And minus plug-in support, it's getting better on the Mac every week (I haven't tried the Linux version). When add-on support is added, I see no argument at all for calling it shit or a joke.
- dforbin 17y agoChrome is my default browser at work where I run windows. The toilet paper comment made me laugh hard though.
- omnipresent1 17y agoonly thing lacking chrome is the plugin support and support for RSS feeds. come on! google, that should have been there from day one!
- _giu 17y agothey held the extension system back possibly because it could have been a bottleneck or because they just didn't want to give you the possibility to use an extension that blocks their ads. however, they are working on the extension system (http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensions http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensio...) and you can already start creating your own extensions (http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensions/howto http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensio... or http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensions/samples http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensio...).
- 10ren 17y agoWhoa, you're right... they don't want adblock. I don't see any google ads these days. Not even on google search... (occasionally in gmail's webclips). Could it be... that not having adblock is a major motivation for google chrome/OS? I suspect the market share of adblock is relatively small, but it's the kind of thing that can only grow... and unlike anything else that has been discussed, adblock directly threatens revenue.
- mingyeow 17y agoFor people who hate this article, can you please share why you hate it instead of just saying it sucks? It was meant to stir things up obviously, but I thought that the various points brought up were really valid.
- ZeroGravitas 17y agoI liked Fake Steve Jobs when it first came out, some of it was really harsh but funny. But I was always slightly perturbed by the "freetard" stuff which seemed out of place for a Steve Jobs parody, and whenever they came up a strangely pro-micrsoft stance appeared too. When I found out that those bits where the opinions of the real author (Dan Lyons) leaking through I found that ruined it somewhat for me.
- boucher 17y ago"freetard" seems pretty in character for Jobs to me.
- look_lookatme 17y agoI wouldn't have a clue what Steve Jobs would think, to be honest with you. However, I can comb through the work of Lyons and see that, yes, outside of the FSJ context he harbors great, almost excessive, disdain for the free software hardcore.
- access_denied 17y agoIndeed, I think he hates them because he sees his old-school world (and thereby his job-security) challenged by this, as he calls it, freetard-thing, which seems to be a blob in his mind consisting of elements from: blogs, linux, oss, free, internet, sandals, open, free. I think this is so, because when he gave a talk about his blog he stated that i got into blogging out of fear that Linux would kill old-school journalism.
- adamc 17y ago"Hate" would be too strong, but I thought it was a stupid article. What Google is releasing seems to be a Linux kernel with a new window manager running Chrome. I don't think that's nearly as difficult as he makes out. He's right that the netbook market is tiny, but it's also poorly served by existing operating systems, so it might be a reasonable place to start. And it certainly makes sense for Google to make using webapps easier, because their core business is based on all that traffic. Anyhow, the article felt to me like it was trying too hard -- lots of hyperbole but few ideas.
- zandorg 17y agoThis is very well written (which is defined as not quitting after the first 3 paragraphs) and the first FSJ post I've read.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- cnlwsu 17y ago"nobody uses Chrome" http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-daily-20090708-20090708-bar http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-daily-20090708-2009070... losing to safari by .05? I understand its a joke... I just didn't laugh. They also say they are planing on starting with netbooks, not only targeting netbooks. I do think its a good niche market to target first though since there isn't as much of a dominance and since netbooks target low prices, removing the windows cost might make it a better seller. All and all I think google and apple use different marketing strategies, so perhaps Jobs wouldn't understand googles strategies. Is interesting that although google makes 60% the total revenue (2008) their gross profit is very close.
- access_denied 17y agoThe joke is to portray Steve Jobs as someone who doesn't respect Adsense as a product.
- RK 17y agoI know that Google says that GCOS is "aimed at Netbooks", but I'm sure that that's supposed to be just the initial target platform. So I think that the criticism that the netbook market is so small as to be meaningless will turn out to be moot. Also, the precedent for this is probably the SplashTop and the (upcoming) Crunchpad.
- dannyr 17y agoI wasn't sure if this is article should be taken seriously. He pointed out that Google is targeting netbooks. He himself stated 11 million netbooks were sold last year and will be 39 million this year. The netbook category is a growing market that it would probably account to a substantial share in a few years. Another is that "Chrome is shit." He probably has never used Chrome. I used the browser exclusively now unless I have a need to use Firebug in which I use Firefox instead. I guess he's trying to be funny but he fell way short.
- jcl 17y agoIt was written so that the reader can take any given point and either embrace it as brilliant insight or disregard it as satirical Fake Steve humor. I mean, the end of the piece entirely contradicts the earlier points... If Chrome OS is pointless and ineffectual -- occupying market niches that Apple isn't even interested in -- why should Fake Steve feel so threatened by it? (BTW, he claims the 39 million netbook figure in the article is for the next four years, not next year, implying that the netbook market is minuscule compared to desktops, laptops, and phones.)
- jodrellblank 17y agoMicrosoft is shipping Windows 7 without a web browser in the EU, after several years of legal fuss largely because they bundled a browser with their OS. I wonder if Google will consider shipping Chrome OS without a web browser in the EU?
- Andys 17y agoI seriously doubt Google will be charging any money for Chrome.
- weavejester 17y agoMicrosoft ran afoul of anti-monopoly legislation. Google (a) do not have a monopoly of the desktop OS market and (b) Chrome OS will be open source, so people would be able to legally distribute Chrome OS without a browser (or more likely, a different rendering engine).
- sahaj 17y agoi don't think anyone will force them to if they say that their OS is a browser.
- jussij 17y agoThey will only get into trouble if they manage to pick up any sort of significant market share. If the Google browser is a flop no one will care less.
- concretecode 17y agoIt always amazes me how the best social commentary comes from those who have the least to lose. Without the artificial constraint of professionalism (or, I guess, the need to be factually accurate), Lyons somehow manages to be more honest and credible, not less. Take his Fake Steve piece on the Microsoft-Yahoo merger: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-out-of-ideas.html http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-... which I felt was the most succinct and insightful piece on the subject from any journalist.
- nir 17y agoExactly. If you don't let the style distract you, Fake Steve is actually the most sensible and sharp tech journalism around. This is the first non-hyperbole analysis of Google's announcement I've seen today. My bet is that Chrome OS will have similar impact to the Chrome browser - encourage everyone to step up their game, but not dominate the market. Google has a lot of money and a lot of bright people, and it acts just like a bright person with little financial concerns: It toys with a lot of ideas, many of them brilliant, but rarely bothers to execute them fully. An OS takes years of frustrating, boring work to mature, I doubt Google has the focus for that.
- access_denied 17y agoHe is also good in weaving in trivia. Example from the Yahoo-merger story: "But what, exactly, is the big vision here? I guess they'll talk about how phase one was the PC revolution and now we're entering phase two which is Internet computing and the cloud and they'll say that by joining together they'll become this giant powerful megacloud provider and the battle for utility computing is going to be all about scale." Years ago Steve Jobs presented the digital-hub strategy for the Mac. He talked about the internet being the second phase of the PC and the digital-hub the third phase. So the above cited paragraph is mockery of the finest order. The better pieces of Fake-Steve are full of this stuff.
- roc 17y agoThey put years of frustrating, boring work into Google search, Maps, Mail, Chat, Calendar, Reader, etc. Why should we doubt their ability to stick with a Linux Windowing and Usability project? This 'Google is unfocused. Google doesn't follow through. Google leaves projects to rot' meme is particularly annoying, because there is so little evidence that it happens to anything on a significant scale. Several of their large acquisitions have appeared to be neglected, but each and every time that I can recall, it's been a seeming public neglect followed by the introduction of the 2.0 successor. Case in point: if you think their social networking acquisitions are being left to rot, vs their energy being focused on new services that integrate with WAVE, I've got a bridge to sell you.
- chaostheory 17y agoIf chrome OS takes away another 1 or 2% of IE usage, that's a big enough of a win for google and everyone else
- teamonkey 17y agoI'm firm in my belief that at least one of the main reasons for Chrome was to kick things up in the browser market, rather than a serious attempt to grab browser market share. "Look, you're doing it all wrong, just give it here a moment... ok, you can have it back now." And it worked - Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla all scrambled to include some, if not all of the features that identified Chrome, which were the features that made it use Google's services more effectively. I'm fairly sure that a part of this (and, to a lesser extent, Android) is a similar deal.
- zmimon 17y agoI would have agreed with you once, but I changed my mind since Google started advertising Chrome like crazy. You can hardly use a Google service these days without having Chrome suggested to you somewhere prominently. It seems like Google is really pushing Chrome to the mainstream. Whatever their reasons, they really do want to capture a significant portion of the market for it.
- dgreensp 17y agoIt's a long way to "capturing a significant portion of the market". What they can do is reach some of the Internet users in dire need of an upgrade, like IE 6 users who trust the Google name, and get them to use a reasonable browser. Not that that explains why Google had to invent their own browser. But their target market was average Internet users, so they might as well try to get them to run it.
- freetard 17y ago> Linus Tordalv started working on Linux back in 1991 when he was a high school student in his native Denmark. That's nearly twenty years ago, and the shit still doesn't run right That's kind of ironic when you that his own blog on blogspot runs on linux.
- mingyeow 17y agohe probably means as a desktop OS. UI for a complex system like the OS is incredibly hard to nail
- raheemm 17y agoGoogle's approach vs. MS or Apple's approach to product development offer an interesting contrast - feature rich apps vs. feature-poor but faster/stabler/simpler apps. Betting on a faster/stables/simpler OS is a worthy and possibly successful endeavor. Atleast it offers another alternative.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- DomesticMouse 17y agoWhy is everyone assuming that this is supposed to be a full computer? It isn't. It's an internet portal tablet. It is optimised for a purpose - getting the browser on the screen with the smallest amount of intermediate steps as possible.
- johng 17y agoI made a rebuttal to the Fake Steve Jobs on my Chrome OS blog here... http://www.chrome-os-blog.com/fake-steve-jobs-on-googles-chrome-os-73/ http://www.chrome-os-blog.com/fake-steve-jobs-on-googles-chr...
- rjurney 17y agoI love Fake Steve. I'm so glad he's back. If only the real Steve were so forthcoming.
- geirfreysson 17y agoFake Steve: "First of all, nobody seems to appreciate how goddamn hard it is to make an operating system." From the Google blog: "[GOS is Chrome running] within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel" So they're not building an OS from scratch. Did Fake Steve even read the post?
- DomesticMouse 17y agoThe thing that is bothering me about the Fake Steve Jobs piece is that Google aren't creating a new operating system. It's Linux, tuned for the tablet environment. If anyone knows about tuning Linux, it's the Google engineers, they tune Linux for millions of machines.