On Sep 2, 2008, at 8:21 PM, Jared Spool wrote:
If you provide a platform (and Chrome, because of it's under-the-
hood enhancements, is a radically new platform) that is
substantially better, people will create apps for it that can't run
anywhere else.
This is not always true. There are far too many examples in the past
that prove better technology doesn't always win. Again, the Be/OS
example comes to mind in direct relation to your own statement. The
Apple OS offerings has largely been better more than WIndows for more
of the time and yet it hardly breaks a certain threshold on market
penetration. Beta versus VHS anyone?
Get a killer app in that space and (to quote Steve Jobs) "boom",
you've got a migration.
This I agree with this. So the question is what's the killer app? Is
it basically Google's own Office suite? Not sure that compelling
enough until Google online apps get even a little more robust than
what they offer today, which I'm sure is in the works.
What makes it more impressive is this platform (unlike be/os or
Windows) is free *and* open source, which means that the competition
is free to see how the technology works and improve on it.
True. But the entire web has been like that up to this point. What
people make for Chrome by nature works for the other browsers. So
there'll be nothing inherently unique for it near as I can tell. The
question will seem to ride on pure performance: Is something fast
enough to make it worth switching? I mean... outside of that, what the
compelling reason for normal users to change? Seriously?
If we're talking about loading CNN.com 1 second faster than it already
does, I'm just not sure. Maybe that's enough? I honestly don't know.
(And yes, when I hit CNN.com, the site renders on my MacBook Pro in
less than 2 seconds generally speaking.)
So, whether people migrate to Chrome or not, every browser developer
is going to pay attention to how Chrome works and we'll see the good
parts go forward.
How so? For speed only? Again, what does Chrome provide that is
inherently unique? It's very premise is that what you make for it
works for other things since it's standards and opensource based, right?
Now, if Google decided to take purposefully *away* from being just
another browser, I'd get excited. In this regard, things that you'd
need in Chrome would be:
* Multiple window support
* Sme form of clipboard data transport support, with the ability to go
to the OS, other windows, drag and drop to desktop, etc.
* Ability to let devs to completely take over all keyboard
interaction, no matter what defaults to the browser itself are
* OS services that give you access to the hardware; file save, etc. (I
don't know enough about Gears, so I admittedly need to catch up on that)
* Palette windows and other OS windows like alerts and print dialogs,
etc.
Then I'd get excited. Then you can do things that are even more app
like while also having a lot of web technologies available to you to
round out what you can build from stuff you're already developing for
the web (which is lot more than it used to be these days). The trick
here that Google has to play is how to make it divergent but not so
much, right? How can it move away from normal web browser experiences
while still letting people do enough of what they want with a browser?
If you know anything about how operating systems work, you'll
recognize that they've put all the essential components into the
browser. Years ago, someone (was is Marc Andreeson? Maybe Steve
Gillmor?) said that the browser will become the next operating
system. Chrome seems to have all the essential components of an
operating system built in.
And yet, they made basically a "web browser." Not excited yet, but I
could get there... It'll certainly be interesting, and if anything,
Google has the staying power to see it through the necessary adoption
curve that will invariably be needed for such a switchover.
--
Andrei Herasimchuk
Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world
e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
c. +1 408 306 6422
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