(Note: I wrote this on July 9th, the day after Google announced Chrome OS, but didn’t get around to publishing it right away. Google confirmed many rumors and some of my speculations since then.)
As I surmised in a previous post (Restrospectives on 2008 and Prognostications for 2009), Google announced a new Internet-oriented meta-operating system in 2009. OK, well, I predicted that they’d release it, not just announce it. An announcement is nearly as good as the real thing, right? Microsoft does that all the time!
It’s really a bit freaky. Last night I was discussing the upcoming operating systems, including Google’s, with my wife, Jen. (That’s right, guys, be jealous. She’s a gorgeous blonde and she tolerates my geek side.) The freaky part is that we were talking about it at the exact same time that Google made their announcement.
OK. It’s not that freaky. Statistically, it was even probable. I talk about operating systems almost every day, and non-IT people (like Jen) talk about how much operating systems suck almost every day. At the time, she was wishing that her MacBook Pro’s OS was more like her new iPhone. She said something like, “Is Windows this daunting, too?”
(I assured her it was worse. Either she accepted that as fact or she smartly decided not to debate it.)
She continued, “The iPhone is so intuitive. Everything is so easy to use. Why can’t computers be like my iPhone? I don’t really need all of that other stuff.”
“Ah ha!” I said. “That’s exactly what Apple and Google are working on…”
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