Published: July 09, 2009 in articles » technology by Thomas Baekdal
Yesterday Google announced that it was going to make their browser based operating system. And within seconds there was a million tweets from people all saying that Google Chrome OS is going to kill Windows. But you know, I do not think that is going to happen at all. Here is why.
Google Chrome OS made sense 7 years ago, but today the world no longer need it. We no longer have many of the problems that caused us to make web applications in the first place. Now we got cloud services and API's, which gives us the freedom to use the best type of app for the job, instead of restricting us to a single type.
At the same time, we no longer have problems getting online. 7 years ago, one of the main reason why we turned to the web was because that it was impractical to bring our computers with us. We had to turn to web applications, because we needed to be able to work from any place, at any time, on either borrowed internet connections or computers.
But today we have mobile internet, and with the iPhone (and others) we literally have the internet in our pockets. It's no longer hard to bring the internet with us. We no longer need to borrow other people's computers.
And the biggest nail in the coffin, for a browser OS, is the rich client apps. 7 years ago, we had desktop apps, which was static, hard to update, complicated to make, very inflexible and rarely internet enabled. The only redeeming feature was that the desktop apps took full advantage of the local system resources.
So again it made sense to turn to web apps. They were much easier to work with, much more flexible, no updating required, and they were always online. The problem, however, with web apps is the browser. The browser is incredibly limiting in what you can do. It is slow, it doesn't take advantage of the hardware, and HTML5+CSS+JavaScript was never built to support complex applications.
But today we got rich client apps. Applications made with e.g. Adobe Air, that works cross-platform. They are extremely flexible to make, very easy to update, can take full advantage of the hardware, and is directly tied into the cloud via API's.
I think Steve Jobs said it the best when he explained why they made Google Maps as a native app, instead of a web app. This is what he said during his interview along with Bill Gates at D5:
Steve Jobs: I'll give you a concrete example. I love Google Maps, use it on my computer, you know, in a browser. But when we were doing the iPhone, we thought, wouldn't it be great to have maps on the iPhone? And so we called up Google and they'd done a few client apps in Java on some phones and they had an API that we worked with them a little on. And we ended up writing a client app for those APIs. They would provide the back-end service. And the app we were able to write, since we're pretty reasonable at writing apps, blows away any Google Maps client. Just blows it away. Same set of data coming off the server, but the experience you have using it is unbelievable. It's way better than the computer. And just in a completely different league than what they'd put on phones before.
And, you know, that client is the result of a lot of technology on the client, that client application. So when we show it to them, they're just blown away by how good it is. And you can't do that stuff in a browser.
So people are figuring out how to do more in a browser, how to get a persistent state of things when you're disconnected from a browser, how do you actually run apps locally using, you know, apps written in those technologies so they can be pretty transparent, whether you're connected or not.
But it's happening fairly slowly and there's still a lot you can do with a rich client environment. At the same time, the hardware is progressing to where you can run a rich client environment on lower and lower cost devices, on lower and lower power devices. And so there are some pretty cool things you can do with clients.
Walt Mossberg: OK. So you're saying rich clients still matter, but-maybe I misunderstood you, but your example was about a rich client that is not a personal computer as we have thought of a personal computer.
Steve Jobs: What I'm saying is, I think the marriage of some really great client apps with some really great cloud services is incredibly powerful and right now, can be way more powerful than just having a browser on the client.
Basically what Steve is saying is that instead of moving your apps into the browser, use the power of the rich-client and the power of the cloud. And connect these two together, using an API. This way you get the best of all worlds.
This is exactly the kind of thing we see with all the recent Twitter apps. And this is the lesson that people learn with the mobile platform.
You can make impressive web apps for the iPhone, but making a non-browser app just blows you away.
Deciding to make a browser-based OS, in 2009, is the wrong decision. The browser is the one element that gets in the way. We don't want the browser to be our primary application. We want the internet to be our primary application, and there is a big difference between the two.
Another thing to keep in mind is how people are using Twitter. In the past, the main way to use social networks was to visit the sites. But today it is no longer the case. Only 20% of Twitter's traffic comes via the browser. The rest comes via rich clients that connect via the API. And we use Twitter directly from our mobiles or netbooks.
We have already moved beyond the browser. It's happening now. We found a better way and it is called the Cloud+API+ {the-best-tool-for-the-job}
If we look 10 years into the future we are going to see big changes in four different areas: The mobile internet, the cloud, APIs, and the missing personal computer.
Today the mobile internet is just getting started. The infrastructure is not really in place, and the mobile carriers are just learning about the new world of mobile internet. But consider this.
The next generation mobile internet is called 4G, and it will give you mobile internet with a speed of 100 Mbit/s (or maybe even more). That is the same speed as you have on your home network, and it is twice as fast as what you can get out of your WI-FI connection.
And this is mobile internet. You will be online anywhere in the world as if you were sitting at home.
The other big thing is the cloud. Cloud services are also just getting started, but in the future a very big part of what we do will be handled by it.
Once we get 4G mobile internet, the cloud suddenly starts to make sense. It will be just as easy to work with files in the cloud as it is from your home network. And, there are a lot of other advantages of storing your files in the cloud.
It is much easier to collaborate and share your files (which is a big thing in a connected world), and you can quickly work with your files across a multitude of rich client apps. E.g. Just look at how Amazon Kindle allows you to seamlessly read ebooks between the full Kindle and the iPhone Kindle.
It doesn't matter which device you use, because the cloud remembers how far you got.
The cloud will:
So the cloud will take over your data, and allow you to do some really amazing things with it.
But keep in mind that you will not be using a single cloud provider. You will probably be using 50 different ones, depending on what kind of job that needs doing.
We have been talking about the semantic web for years. You know, a web where we could work with the data directly, instead of some HTML output. So far nothing has really happened. The web is still largely non-semantic.
But something strange has happened in 2009. Because now a ton of sites is outputting their content in the form of an API, and an API is all about the data. So without realizing it, the semantic web exists in the form of API's. Every site and every services that outputs their content in the form of XML is an API. And as such you got semantics.
We all know about the big API's like the Twitter or Flickr API (and partly Facebook, which isn't really an API). But almost every other site is also outputting their data in XML via RSS. That is essentially an API too.
But the biggest change is what is going to happen with our personal computer. In the future the concept of a personal computer is going to disappear.
There are generally 4 reasons why we buy a laptop today:
But it is predicted that the your mobile devices will be as powerful as your laptops within the next 10 years, and when you combine that with the cloud, then all you really need is an iPhone.
So we do not want a ‘Browser OS'. With the advancements of the Cloud, the API's, the mobile internet and the future of computing, what we really need is an ‘Internet OS'.
We need something that can take full advantage of the power of the cloud, mix that with the power of our mobile devices, and allow us to create a rich internet experience. We need something that goes far beyond the power of the browser.
I think we are going to see a lot of experimentations with web-based services. Google is coming out with their browser OS, and Microsoft is probably announcing Office for the Web on Monday. Google is also coming out with Google Wave, which is really exciting. Not to mention Google Gears that allows you to work with data locally. And, we are also seeing some really exciting stuff from the Webkit people.
So the next 5 years is going to be filled with web apps.
But the browser, being a viewer of HTML5+CSS+JavaScript is not capable of ‘blowing you away', so we have to move beyond it. This will start to happen in the next 5 years.
There are two ways this can happen. The browser can either evolve to be much more than it is today. Moving beyond the limitations of HTML+CSS+Javascript (and Google is certainly trying to do that). But considering the low speed of the World Wide Web consortium, I just do not see it happening.
The other solution is to rethink the operating system. Make something that combines the power of the cloud, with the functionality and hardware of the mobile devices, and create a genuine ‘Internet OS'.
At any case, at some point in the next 10 years, we are going to move beyond the browser.
What do you think?
Read also: Designing Future Websites
© 2009 Joshua Hays (can I really copyright myself?)
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I feel as if the real change will be in the way we compute. I imagine your illustration of simply adding your pictures from your iPhone to a digital photo frame as easy as the 'flick of a finger'. But this is something that should already be available via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi; in fact I am sure it has already been done.
You're right though, the advancement will be in the way data is handled and exchanged via the cloud. I would love to have everything simultaneously 'pushed' and exchanged between devices. If my computer, Xbox 360, iPhone and laptop all operated with one another (as if they all referenced a single server) - things could dramatically change. In fact, why would people even need to 'go to work' anymore?
Great article!
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Rick, Thanks!
I too hope that the world will change faster. We need this kind of thing now. Not in 10 years :)
Joshua, several photo frames already comes with built in WI-FI. In fact many of them can be extended with the FrameChannel service (http://www.framechannel.com/)
And, using your iPhone you can already take a picture and directly upload directly.
So yes, that part already exists.
It is not perfect, but we are getting there :)
This makes no sense at all... 7 years ago, there were no productivity suites online. You could not edit spreadsheets, documents or presentations online. There were no apps to edit and sort images online. Webmail interfaces were still either terrible or Internet Explorer specific. In that era, Google Chrome OS would have made NO sense whatsoever - because there weren't webapps enough to replace the desktop!
And on a sidenote: I think Adobe Air and Microsoft Silverlight is terrible, because I expect my desktop apps to blend in with my desktop. And they don't. They look and feel exactly like web apps, which just makes them awkward citizens on my desktop. But since you are praising them, what makes running an Air application locally any different from running a webapp in the same manner? Adobe Air and MS Silverlights basically ARE webapps, just with a greater API available. And there is no reason Google Chrome OS won't offer that.
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Håvard, You are right there were very few web applications around 7 years ago. But the buzz around web apps started in 2002.
Tomasj, Thanks :)
It is too bad that I cannot attach an image to my comment. I think the end of your article proves exactly why you are wrong.
http://bildr.no/image/446758.jpeg
Google will succeed. They will not kill the good old fashion computer for IT professionals. But your own mum? … can you seriously claim she is better of with a heavy duty computer?
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I must admit that fail to see how my article can be interpreted as the future is about heavy-duty computers?
I'm am saying that the future will not be about a browser OS, but an internet OS - running on incredibly light-weight devices... like an iPhone. That has nothing to do with old fashion or heavy anything :)
BTW: The ad at the end of the article is handled by Google Adsense. I have no control over what is being displayed.
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The more I read about and talk with people about computers, I see there are three distinct "classes" of computer users.
1. Hard core IT - those that need every ounce of PC power for their jobs and/or personal life. They program, game, virtualize, and push the computer and OS to the limit and have no problem spending hours working out problems and tweaking the PC for their needs.
2. Business IT - usually self-taught computer users who just want to get things done...use the computer as a tool. Sometimes tied to proprietary software, but mostly use word processing, spreadsheets (basic), email, Internet, and some digital photography.
3. Home IT - Like the business class, use the essential functions of a computer, social networking and little else.
In my business (computer consultant/trainer), reading and travels, I find that light weight OS offerings from Linux and that proposed from Google (which is also Linux) provide MORE than ample power and flexibility for the latter 2 classes of computer users.
User experience designer, maker of computerized interfaces, musical omnivore, attempted wine snob, father and haphazard gardener.
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I think you have valid points, although predicting the future of computing is a tricky business. Apropos of nothing, I was thinking about the User Experience and wrote a bit of a diatribe called "6 crap User Interface conventions we are stuck with" at my website. Right as I posted the Google OS news was announced. It struck me then that if we are to change how people use computing, as you suggest, we have to change some of the conventions we are used to. Namely, 'having' files we are working on, caring about, laboring over. To disassociate our files from ownership is attractive, and does remove the need for some of the old models of computing. Google may actually be pointing toward the future by writing the OS to run on HTML, in a sense, the whole OS is a browser. However the mental need for 'ownership', 'control', 'security' are hard habits to break, and may actually be harder to solve than the technical capabilities a 'cloud' may provide.
Interesting article, but you make some assumptions which I still think are "wishful thinking".
The cloud only replaces the desktop if you can guarantee 99.9999% uptime. That is still a pipe dream today. Hotmail. GMail, Amazon S3, MobileMe all still go down and leave their respective users stranded in the process. Heck, fiber cables laying on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean get severed and bring down entire countries!
The ubiquitous, wireless world you paint a picture of gets really scary when something goes down and you cannot resort to good old fashioned localized computing power and data storage. You're stuck out in the middle of a lake on a boat with no paddles in that world
I also believe you cannot categorically dismiss Google's Chrome OS based on a one page press release.
Why don't we just wait until we start seeing public Betas before making judgements and going on record with opinions based on few or no facts?
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Rick, I am sorry to say but I think that is besides the point :)
Take a look at the iPhone. The difference in how people use is it, is not about the operating system. It's about what kind of apps people use. The role of the operating system is give people the power of the devices, not put them into classes.
Michael, Change is always a problem, but I am not too worried about it (except that it is going to take a lot of time). Many of the things we worry about today is going to seem silly in the future.
The problem is that we focus on getting people to accept the technical change. But take a look at TweetDeck (or some of the many other Twitter apps). It is a cloud API based app, and people use it. People never realize that they are using a completely different type of app. They never noticed the change.
Also keep in mind the US is a little more sensitive when it comes to data privacy than Europe.
How can you guarantee a life's worth of data is secure when it is all stored and accessed through the cloud?
I personally still would want copies of all my data stored on physical magnetic/flash media stored away in an environmentally controlled, fire proof vault at two redundant sites when (not if) the cloud crashes.
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BTW: Rick, not that I disagree with you. You are spot on about those types of classes of computer users, and what they think they need.
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No problem here...that's what is great about the web, blogs, and comments...it stimulates great conversation! I left that Palm platform to buy the iPhone 3G last summer and could not be happier. I can do more work, yes work, with the iPhone than I could think of doing on the Palm, and I loved my Palm devices (Treo). Unfortunately, too many people on this planet just don't evolve as fast as we do.
To the naysayers about the cloud reliability, I say pish posh. I have used Gmail full-time for almost 3 years and retrieve 4 email addresses with it via my domain. The down time that Gmail has had in those three years is less than that of my ISP! And for the naysayers who complain about "offline access", there is Google Gears, but I ask them to name a realistic time when they are "offline". And as for email; why would you want to be offline when working with it????
I'm offline every day I am at the office since I have no cellular coverage at all where I work (big empty spot on the AT&T coverage map).
My iPhone 3G is a glorified brick at that point since most of the amazing apps I have simply do not work without some kind of data connectivity.
I am also offline when doing CPU intensive audio/video production work.
I want the cloud future this article envisions as much as the next guy, but once you step outside of the European/Asian continents and major US metro areas, you begin to realize just how far away the dream is based on data connectivity.
Reminds me of the article earlier this week on Businessweek where AT&T elaborates on their plans for more connected devices as a future revenue stream. I wish they spent as much energy trying to figure out how to actually make their network as ubiquitous and reliable as their misleading TV ads make them out to be...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_28/b4139064361012.htm?chan=innovation_innovation %2B design_top stories
What a great post!
First I read the opening paragraphs and thought 'what load of rubbish' but later I returned to read the rest of the article and it is exactly what I have been thinking for the last few months only you were able to really explain it well.
Will Google's Web OS fail? I don't think so. However, is an Internet OS, as you described it, an advancement to a Web OS? Absolutely.
It will probably take some time for things to mature but what an exciting time to be involved in the Web industry.
The future of computing has nothing to do with OS.
OS is something people should never notice - like you don't notice the stuff going on inside your fridge that makes things...well, cool.
This article makes a great point in that respect: if all future OS and applications are connected to the Internet by default, and leverage on Internet capabilities, than it makes no difference whether any application or stuff you use is desktop or Internet based. "Browser", in this context, is an outdated concept that can only survive if kept within it's original intention - browsing.
To keep my point clear: Internet is a resource, and no application using that resource, including "browser", can claim on it. It would be as if some company 100 years go claimed that telegraph machine is the best way to leverage on communication lines.
Therfore, Thomas is absolutely right when he points out that things should be Internet (resource) based, not application (browser) based.
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Thanks Peter & Damir :)
Rick, "Unfortunately, too many people on this planet just don't evolve as fast as we do." Ain't that the truth :)
You don't know what ChromeOS is or will be.
A lot of your commentary sounds to me like a great argument for it.
It's most likely not "using a browser as an operating system," as you're so narrowly interpreting it. It's much more likely to be an operating system that doesn't force the (now that's 2009, unnecessary) distinction between "internet software" and "operating system software" as far as the end user interprets it.
Adobe Air and Silverlight are valiant attempts to bridge a sloppy gap, but they still require people to download additional software to make applications work that should just work on their own.
I'd ask that you imagine a possibility that ChromeOS is not an unnecessary competitor of those tools, but rather a basis to remove the need for that kind of tool at all.
"what we really need is an ‘Internet OS'"
I think this describes it all. It´s a nice analysis this one you have made. And I agree with the voices that say that google will not fail, because they will not focus as much on the "browser" like you said, and they will start developing an OS focused on the internet, as you wished =)
so, everybody wins.
http://googlefreak.cyberdera.com/googleos/chrome-os-an-alternative/
Yet another otherwise-insightful essay on ChromeOS that completely ignores the existence of Google Native Client — rich native applications that are integral to the web.
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Jul 9
2009
Rick Castellini
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Wow! Not in a Bill Gates Vista release Wow, that was off base. I'm saying Wow in that you nailed some extremely linear thoughts about the Web, storage, content creation, and content management, and the current tech pinnacle of having all our data, creation tools, and speed across multiple devices.
I'm just hoping that Google spurs growth and investment in this direction much sooner than 10 years. Just by their shear size and clout, I think a fire has been lit under many technology companies this week.
And as a quick side note, I've been successfully using and conducting my business using an EeePC with various light weight Linux installs. It's easy and fun to change and try new tools because the installations are fast and require zero configuration AND ALL THE TOOLS I use for communication and business exist on the web/cloud. You mentioned Adobe Air and some of the tools available for use with Air are phenomenal.