Ah, I'm finally able to see all the responses! Thanks to the clever gnomes who make this discussion list work.
My original question was "why isn't the OS a browser," not, "why can't my browser be the operating system." I think there's a difference. Several people pointed out that you will always need the OS to run keyboards, RAM, and other background functions. And at least for the foreseeable future, memory-intensive programs are better off running natively. But it seems to me there's no reason the whole OS couldn't become a background application doing those things behind the scenes. Kind of like the way Windows runs in DOS. Hardly anyone remembers that DOS used to be the operating environment. Now it's completely invisible. Kids growing up with technology in the coming years aren't going to concern themselves with memory management, screen redraw speed, devices -- probably not even physical keyboards. And many of the OS controls Dave mentioned -- power, security, wireless, user management -- are the sort of thing you worry about once, when you're walking through the setup wizard, and then never think of again. So I do think it's valid to ask whether the average user cares about the distinction between the OS and the browser and -- if not -- what can we do to make the experience more transparent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45492 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
