Why You Should Worry About the Future of Chromebooks 216
dcblogs writes "PC manufacturers may try to corral Chromebook, much like Netbooks, by setting frustratingly low hardware expectations. The systems being released from HP, Acer, Lenovo and Samsung are being built around retro Celeron processors and mostly 2 GB of RAM. By doing so, they are targeting schools and semi-impulse buyers and may be discouraging corporate buyers from considering the system. Google's Pixel is the counter-force, but at a price of $1,299 for the Wi-Fi system, reviewers, while gushing about hardware, believe it's too much, too soon. The Chromebook is a threat to everything, especially PC makers, as its apps improve. Compare Tweetdeck's HTML5 version with its native app. Can you tell the difference? It might be a year or two before Adobe delivers Web-only versions of its products, but if it doesn't it will be surrendering larger portions of its mindshare to users of Pixlr, Pixel Mixer, PicMonkey and many other interesting and increasingly capable tools."
Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
And then when it fails to bring money it gets discontinued. And you have a very expensive paperweight... Google Reader was an eye opener. Depending on a third party for core functionality is something I'll be avoiding from now one, since you never know...
ChromeOS is the problem not the hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
Time Travel (Score:5, Interesting)
The good news in this transition is that we may get back to buying a PC that is geared to what we want rather than being full of junk that tech-illiterates need (specifically in the OS). If MS don't want to provide that experience (and evidence suggests that they don't) then we will just all wipe the machines and put linux on them.
The bad news is that we will also travel back in time with the price of a PC. Inflation has ran at 3-5% for the last 25 years (give or take a couple of years), yet the cost of a baseline PC has more than halved in that time. That scale only comes with the addition of the tech-illiterate (& Chinese assembly) - once they buy pixibooks and tablets we will be left to pick up the full price for our dedicated high power PCs. The only possible depression on prices is corporate buying, but it can't be too long before they create a stable lightweight environment to get the bulk of corporate work done instead of buying a workstation for every desk.
Who's pushing these articles? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every few years there seems to be a push to get people to accept these ass-backwards computers. Apparently the software companies love the concept of users being held captive to them and requiring their permission just to run the simplest application. "Renting" software on a per usage basis is like their wettest dream.
I remember back in the day, Oracle was pushing these "Net Computers" or NCs as being the future. Nobody needs to run software from their own hard drive, you can just get everything from the Net! Except for the fact people's hard drives were 4 orders of magnitude faster than their internet connection (and will continue to be so for any foreseeable future). Nobody ended up buying this shit and it went into the dustbin of history.
But looks like they're trying it again, except now it's been renamed "cloud computing".
Re:Run.. run away (Score:5, Interesting)
The decision that "privacy is dead" happened over a decade ago. Or, do you not remember Scott McNealy, former chairman of Sun Microsystems, who in 1999 said, "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." And the observation by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: "The privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion. All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy." ??
Privacy gets in the way of money, and money is a means of attaining and exercising power. Throw in the alarming statistic about CEO psychopaths [time.com], and you have what ails our world today.
Government has no incentive whatsoever to intervene here, because they also directly profit from stomping on privacy. Look at this editorial for instance. [wsj.com] Unless the politicos are themselves harmed by the loss of privacy, they have no incentive to protect it, and every reason to trample all over it instead.
The cleary proscribed solution to this problem is to exploit the fuck out of this surveylance society they are working oh so hard to make, and put THEM under the spotlight. It is the only way to get the retractions on positions and rulings required to halt the slide downhill. The leaders are only concerned with themselves, as is true of all psychopaths. You have to make them feel the fires too to get them motivated to do what is right, and they will bitch mightily about it the whole time.
Amusingly, that's what orgs like wikileaks aimed to do. We saw how that's worked for the likes of Assange. (Yes, he is the very definition of douche, but a douche that exposed a lot of dirty dealing, and pissed in a lot of cheerios, which is exactly what was needed, and is still desperately needed.)
Re:Time Travel (Score:5, Interesting)
Time travel? Looks more like space travel.
Most of the decline in price in desktop systems results from chip-scale integration. I can't even figure out what you mean by "pick up the full price". We've been paying less? This is news to me. The only reason the price will bounce upwards is further consolidation of the market, as we saw with Seagate and Western Digital.
The largest overhead in the PC business stems from the design cadence. Every shrink is more expensive than the last one. I wouldn't be the least surprised if Intel's two year shrink cadence begins to stretch out, which might slow the investment cycle and reduce prices in the short run, but publicly Intel seems to think not.
From Intel Has 5 nm Processors in Sight [tomshardware.com] -- September 2012 by Wolfgang Gruener
Looks like the underlying cost structure is largely shared.
history repeating (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yes (Score:2, Interesting)
Instead of chromebooks why not run a Android gain a touch screen screen and add a bluetooth keyboard and be done with it.
when chromebook concept first came out it was good. it just took 3 years longer to get to the market than it should have and android tablet can beat it in every way.
Re:OMG The Sky is Falling! (Score:5, Interesting)
It used to be that I'd use a web browser for websites and specialized applications to access other services like email and newsgroups.
Now I read my email in a browser, but websites are always asking me to install an app to view them!
If that isn't a sign of the end-times, what is?
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Gmail and Google Reader are two different beasts. Gmail is used as the primary authentication of many, many Google services and provides its parent company with much more detailed profile of users than what feed you read... Just saying.
Actually, the authentication system used by Gmail is the primary authentication of many, many Google services. That's a whole different animal from Gmail itself, and it's very easy to cut loose a massive email system but keep the authentication infrastructure, especially when you developed both of them to begin with. You have a point about the detailed profile of users...but that's a double-edged sword. Google has been, I feel, under a level of scrutiny that I think is out of proportion with how they actually treat private data. All that it would take is a scandal (either at Google or at some similar service) and all of a sudden that one value they get out of Gmail could be taken away from them. Then what?
Anyone here remember Juno? Just saying.
Re:history repeating (Score:4, Interesting)
A large portion of consumers have repeatedly stated the Chromebook is exactly what they want. It's cheap, handles basic computing needs (word processes, etc), handles online streaming, and is nearly virus proof with little to no learning curve. There is also no slow degrade of speed over time as your not installing any software. For a lot of non-techies, it's a dream come true.
Looking forward to getting a few more bucks saved up to get my wife another as she's used her old Chromebook into the ground (the monitor is literally held on with tape as it was a beta product and she's a rough user).
You may not agree, but I find it hard to believe you formed your opinion on the realities of what the common computer user wants.
Why you shouldn't worry (Score:5, Interesting)
Because Chromebooks are exactly zero threat to any of the three established operating systems. It's all hype, smoke and mirrors. If people want a lightweight computer, the iPad and its Android counterparts are right there, priced well and offering all manner of ergonomic amenities superior to any lap-anything... even if you need to type seriously, a cheap bluetooth keyboard and you're going. If, on the other hand, someone actually needs a laptop, it'll be to run software X; and a Chromebook... won't. Best you can say for them is they can be crowbarred to run linux; but we already know how linux laptops fare in the marketspace. Not well. Chromebooks are simply a bad idea, DOA, FUBAR and catastrophically late to the party.
What you want to be paying attention to at this point in time is Google Glass. Now that is likely to change your life. You won't like it, either.
just in time for MS to double up (Score:4, Interesting)
In reality, they have the money. They'll fire every other person in charge of UI design and planning and make something their customers actually want by Windows 10. I just hope, FOR ONCE, they learn their lesson permanently! Considering the every other cycle is since Windows 3.1, that's doubtful.