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Chrome OS isn't built for developers. It's built for Google. And online advertisers. ChromeOS is built for users. The comparison in this article is ridiculous

by acg 17y ago

Chrome OS isn't built for developers. It's built for Google. And online advertisers. ChromeOS is built for users. The comparison in this article is ridiculous. Somehow because Google does not provide a developer prerelease they are anti-developer. It seems to me there is plenty of time to develop: there is a a period of time between when Android gets released and when it gets onto the handset of your choice. If you are writing a development tool that you need early access to releases perhaps it's best talking to google. I'm sure that Google is willing to work with anyone who is supporting their platform.

vetinari 17y ago
The problem with Android is, that the time between when it gets released and when it gets onto the handset of your choice is one week (Motorola Droid and Eclair). And that is the improvement, in past it used to get onto handsets and into the wild first, then released to developers (G1 and 1.1, I'm looking at you). Basically the development process of Android is closed, Google does not comment on ongoing developments, the sources (or information) are occasionally dumped on developers. The 2.0 is still not fully open. The older releases still do not build for G1/G2 - you cannot checkout the source, configure for particular device and at the end of the process have an image that you can flash. Or the situation with ADP1 - it is supposed to be development phone, but there was still no communication, whether 2.0 will be able to run at all at the device. Developers outside Google/HTC cannot work on the tree, because it does not build...
gaius 17y ago
ChromeOS is built for users. The comparison in this article is ridiculous. Nothing Google does is for "users". Advertisers are Google's customers. Users are Google's product.
- acg 17y ago
  Nothing? That's pretty bold. Google has begun to charge for services in the cloud: this though is a competitive environment. I see ChromeOS as a move to build a user-base for they cloud-based software services. Some of those services will be advert funded, but no-doubt they will have a paid model too. How something is funded is separate from who it is designed for. For example newspapers copy is partly funded by advertisements too as is television. The product in both these cases is not the readers/viewers. Most of what Google does is for the users, as they want to keep their market share. The same way that a television station needs good programming to keep viewers.
  - bad_user 17y ago
    By that circular reasoning you could also say that developers are important, since that's the way to attract users ... since nobody will use your OS if it isn't capable of running your favorite apps. I know that the browser is the new OS and all that crap, but a laptop/netbook capable of only running web apps (or apps designed for Chrome's APIs) seems pretty pointless to me. And I'm really thankful for Moore's law ... with multi-core Intel/ARM processors, and all those GPUs ... you'll now be able to run your all your apps in a browser. That's a serious accomplishment. Developers should be able to choose the platform based on real technical requirements, not on artificial limitations. All your applications running in the cloud? Who's cloud? Meet the new boss, same as the old one.
- camccann 17y ago
  Nothing Google does is for "users". Advertisers are Google's customers. Users are Google's product. That's mostly true, but a little too glib in some ways. Their raw material is prospective users, their salable product is actual users, and attracting and retaining those users is their manufacturing process. They absolutely do things "for users" in the same sense that an iron refinery does things "for iron ore".

by acg 17y ago

vetinari 17y ago

The problem with Android is, that the time between when it gets released and when it gets onto the handset of your choice is one week (Motorola Droid and Eclair). And that is the improvement, in past it used to get onto handsets and into the wild first, then released to developers (G1 and 1.1, I'm looking at you). Basically the development process of Android is closed, Google does not comment on ongoing developments, the sources (or information) are occasionally dumped on developers. The 2.0 is still not fully open. The older releases still do not build for G1/G2 - you cannot checkout the source, configure for particular device and at the end of the process have an image that you can flash. Or the situation with ADP1 - it is supposed to be development phone, but there was still no communication, whether 2.0 will be able to run at all at the device. Developers outside Google/HTC cannot work on the tree, because it does not build...

gaius 17y ago

ChromeOS is built for users. The comparison in this article is ridiculous. Nothing Google does is for "users". Advertisers are Google's customers. Users are Google's product.

acg 17y ago
Nothing? That's pretty bold. Google has begun to charge for services in the cloud: this though is a competitive environment. I see ChromeOS as a move to build a user-base for they cloud-based software services. Some of those services will be advert funded, but no-doubt they will have a paid model too. How something is funded is separate from who it is designed for. For example newspapers copy is partly funded by advertisements too as is television. The product in both these cases is not the readers/viewers. Most of what Google does is for the users, as they want to keep their market share. The same way that a television station needs good programming to keep viewers.
- bad_user 17y ago
  By that circular reasoning you could also say that developers are important, since that's the way to attract users ... since nobody will use your OS if it isn't capable of running your favorite apps. I know that the browser is the new OS and all that crap, but a laptop/netbook capable of only running web apps (or apps designed for Chrome's APIs) seems pretty pointless to me. And I'm really thankful for Moore's law ... with multi-core Intel/ARM processors, and all those GPUs ... you'll now be able to run your all your apps in a browser. That's a serious accomplishment. Developers should be able to choose the platform based on real technical requirements, not on artificial limitations. All your applications running in the cloud? Who's cloud? Meet the new boss, same as the old one.
camccann 17y ago
Nothing Google does is for "users". Advertisers are Google's customers. Users are Google's product. That's mostly true, but a little too glib in some ways. Their raw material is prospective users, their salable product is actual users, and attracting and retaining those users is their manufacturing process. They absolutely do things "for users" in the same sense that an iron refinery does things "for iron ore".