Will Android And Chrome Marry?

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This just sounds so wrong. ;)

The WSJ reported that "Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s vice president of engineering for its Android mobile-operating system, is now also overseeing the engineering team behind Google’s Chrome operating system." The paper believes that is a sign that Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president in charge of Android, Chrome and Apps since 2013, plans on merging the two operating systems sooner rather than later.
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Thank goodness! Android is everywhere, why do they even have Chrome OS anymore?

I assume that most Android Apps would work if there was only Android, even on x86 chips.
 
This will be great because they will basically make Google OS like windows 8 was and everyone will rejoice at how amazing and innovative it is while they blame the stupid move by MS to not converge OSes as the death of the company. Everyone will talk about how stupid MS was when they made windows 10 back like windows 7. We will be drowning in the irony.
 
Chrome, sounds like a cool name. Sleek, shiny.

Or maybe, they named it after Chrome ore, an ore some people mine like Google mines data............
 
Chrome is built around the desktop/laptop. I also see the potential for media player. I would expect an acceleration of Android apps appearing on ChromeOS devices and a maturing of ChromeOS into a more complete OS
 
I am thinking that Chrome books will be VERY productive machines with Android Apps available to them.
 
jpm100 said:
And this will be different from Windows 10, how?
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Or anything input into OS X's new
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search box, by default, you can turn it off the and block it with your firewall.
 
I asked a mod to fix the above post. I was supposed to link it instead of making it an image. :(
 
I'm really hoping FirefoxOS gains some decent support. Google is one of the companies I want to distance myself from. If MS would get there head out of their butt and just have 1 version of windows instead of this RT crap and give it decent support they'd do much better.
 
QwertyJuan said:
So you believe Google is tracking everyone's keystrokes on all Android devices? Really?
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Nope, not at all. I just think the rumor is fun to joke about. Now what websites you visit, apps you install, calls you make, texts and e-mails you send, where you're located, and how you smell at the time...totally yes. :p

jpm100 said:
And this will be different from Windows 10, how?
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I dunno, but I haven't worried much about what Microsoft is doing lately.
 
rudy said:
This will be great because they will basically make Google OS like windows 8 was and everyone will rejoice at how amazing and innovative it is while they blame the stupid move by MS to not converge OSes as the death of the company. Everyone will talk about how stupid MS was when they made windows 10 back like windows 7. We will be drowning in the irony.
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Hardly. There's a right way and a wrong way to converge. So far MS has been doing the wrong. An ugly interface of giant monocolored tiles is not the way to vault people over the convergence threshold.
 
DPI said:
An ugly interface of giant monocolored tiles is not the way to vault people over the convergence threshold.
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Except tiles weren't the problem with Windows 8 and your description is inaccurate at best. A tile in 8.1 can be one of 4 different sizes based on app support and can display just any image or text that it wants and can be updated. That's a bit more advanced that static single-size icon. The issue with Windows 8 as adapting the UI shell. Windows 10 will address this problem and on the desktop side it looks like it has with windowed modern apps. We'll need to see how well Continuum works to see if the tablet side works well.

The issue that converging Android and Chrome will in a way be opposite that of Windows 8. How many people like yourself bemoan tablet apps as being to simplistic and unneeded on the desktop. A marriage between ChromeOS and Android better produce some desktop software.
 
I'm kind of unsure why they didn't just grow Android into a desktop-capable OS rather than build an OS that revolves entirely around a browser. It's kind of amusing how it worked out, though. If I saw the idea of Chrome OS on paper, I'd have balked.
 
I hope they do this soon, and bring the OS to the desktop. Microsoft could use some competition to light a fire under their ass. I know I would consider an Android powered desktop.
 
rudy said:
This will be great because they will basically make Google OS like windows 8 was and everyone will rejoice at how amazing and innovative it is while they blame the stupid move by MS to not converge OSes as the death of the company. Everyone will talk about how stupid MS was when they made windows 10 back like windows 7. We will be drowning in the irony.
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I think it is more about the core of the two OSes rather than just the UI. cause to it's core minus the UI windows 10 is a converged OS across all platforms, I think you are mistaking the return of the start menu as just the only reason of convergence.
 
MisterHipster said:
I hope they do this soon, and bring the OS to the desktop. Microsoft could use some competition to light a fire under their ass. I know I would consider an Android powered desktop.
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Android desktop devices already exist. I've not personally tried one but the couple of reviews I've seen of them were less than enthusiastic. If you think Windows 8 on a desktop is a blown up phone/tablet OS then this rings even more true of Android which is without question a touch first phone/tablet OS with really no true desktop applications.

That said I think that many if not most casual users would be fine with tablet apps even on a laptop or desktop. But if all one ever needed were phone/tablet apps they'd probably just use a phone or a tablet.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Windows' strength is in its enormous desktop ecosystem but is very weak on the tablet/touch side. Android is in the reverse but considering that Android has no desktop ecosystem Android I'm not sure how it really serves the purpose of a desktop other than driving phone/tablet apps via mouse and keyboard.
 
the biggest advantage of a switch to Chrome OS is that it puts more power in the hands of Google to maintain a standardized user experience ... Android allows the companies a large amount of leeway on customizing the experience (which has created problems for Google rolling out upgrades and new features for legacy users) ... also, since Android is open source, Google has ceded a lot of control on the OS ... Chrome is like Windows is to MS ... it is totally within the control of Google (which allows them to optimize the user experience and manage the stability/performance of the OS more effectively) ... I think it is a given that this merger will occur sooner rather than later
 
They will merge the two OS's - similar to how Microsoft is merging Windows Phone with regular Windows.
 
niconx said:
Chrome OS is just a web browser, Android already has a web browser.
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The UI resembles a web browser -- traditionally only allowing web apps to be run -- but the OS is not.

kbrickley said:
the biggest advantage of a switch to Chrome OS is that it puts more power in the hands of Google to maintain a standardized user experience ... Android allows the companies a large amount of leeway on customizing the experience (which has created problems for Google rolling out upgrades and new features for legacy users) ... also, since Android is open source, Google has ceded a lot of control on the OS ... Chrome is like Windows is to MS ... it is totally within the control of Google (which allows them to optimize the user experience and manage the stability/performance of the OS more effectively) ... I think it is a given that this merger will occur sooner rather than later
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Google does seem to have more control of Chrome OS. Although it is built off of the open source Chromium OS (+ the licensed goodies like MP4, H.264, etc.), the terms of service and branding rules for the vendors seem to imply that they just take a single blob from Google and throw it on their products, without any opportunity to modify it.
 
heatlesssun said:
Android desktop devices already exist. I've not personally tried one but the couple of reviews I've seen of them were less than enthusiastic. If you think Windows 8 on a desktop is a blown up phone/tablet OS then this rings even more true of Android which is without question a touch first phone/tablet OS with really no true desktop applications.

That said I think that many if not most casual users would be fine with tablet apps even on a laptop or desktop. But if all one ever needed were phone/tablet apps they'd probably just use a phone or a tablet.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Windows' strength is in its enormous desktop ecosystem but is very weak on the tablet/touch side. Android is in the reverse but considering that Android has no desktop ecosystem Android I'm not sure how it really serves the purpose of a desktop other than driving phone/tablet apps via mouse and keyboard.
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I know they exist, but I think they need to evolve to be more desktop friendly. Android on the desktop is great, but it needs to evolve, and I think that will happen when Chrome and Android marry. If it does evolve to be more mouse/keyboard friendly, I think then we will have a true, worthy alternative to Windows.
 
rudy said:
This will be great because they will basically make Google OS like windows 8....
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I have no idea what you're trying to say, other than you love Microsoft.

Microsoft wanted 3 different operating systems. Windows, Windows RT, and Windows Phone. The only reason MS is talking convergence now is that Windows RT and Windows Phone were complete and utter failures of epic proportions. Window RT is basically already dead, and Windows Phone is on life support and slowly dying. Desktop Windows on everything is Microsoft's last desperate hope to avoid completely losing the tablet and phone market.
 
BladeVenom said:
Microsoft wanted 3 different operating systems. Windows, Windows RT, and Windows Phone. The only reason MS is talking convergence now is that Windows RT and Windows Phone were complete and utter failures of epic proportions. Window RT is basically already dead, and Windows Phone is on life support and slowly dying. Desktop Windows on everything is Microsoft's last desperate hope to avoid completely losing the tablet and phone market.
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Does this mean that MS has basically abandoned support for ARM processors? Or are they folding ARM support into their one unified Windows OS?
 
jwcalla said:
Does this mean that MS has basically abandoned support for ARM processors? Or are they folding ARM support into their one unified Windows OS?
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Windows Phone is ARM based, and I wouldn't imagine that MS will be giving out previews of ARM Windows 10 (for phones) to the public.
 
BladeVenom said:
Windows 10 preview on ARM won't be until "well into 2015."
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I think most of the current rumors say that it will be released in January.

pxc said:
Windows Phone is ARM based, and I wouldn't imagine that MS will be giving out previews of ARM Windows 10 (for phones) to the public.
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Current rumors are that there will be a public preview for Windows RT/Phone devices. Microsoft currently has a mechanism to distribute developer previews on Windows Phones which are available to anyone free of charge that signs up for a Windows Phone developer account. The process doesn't work on all current Windows Phone but most I believe, I'm running the latest developer preview on my HTC One M8 Windows device.
 
I have an Acer 720 and it does have some redeeming qualities, mostly from a hardware aspect. But my experience with Chrome so far is it the least useful Operating System I have ever used.

I would even rank Windows RT several notches above it.

I like experiencing different things, but Chrome is a flop in my opinion. Unless there is a major overhaul to the underlying structure, I'm not even sure how they could make it useful.

It's a 21st century dumb terminal.
 
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