Some may wonder why Google does not move immediately to unify Android and Chrome environments, instead of supporting two environments, one for PCs and the other for smart phones and tablets.
In fact, Google executives have said in the past that Android and Chrome will, at some point, be unified. Obviously Google continues to believe, or at least, the supporters of the two operating system approach within Google continue to believe, that two operating systems are the best solution for now.
That line of reasoning might be that even if the two operating systems eventually are merged, that does not mean such a unification is best attempted now. Perhaps the better approach is to optimize each for the distinct roles of PCs and smart phones and tablets, for the moment.
Cost, simplicity, minimal overhead and speed all could be valid reasons for doing so, at least for the moment. As smart phones morph into larger screen tablets, and PCs morph into smaller screen netbooks, there might come a time when a new sort of device logically is the place to create one single operating system.
But, for the moment, Google might be betting it is better off to optimize the smart phone and notebook environments for the use cases and interfaces people tend to expect in each domain, and then only gradually unify the approaches as users begin to change their interface preferences, if in fact that happens.
Some of us would continue to argue that the user interface for a content creation and work task is quite distinct from a content consumption application. As a rational engineer would not simply duplicate unneeded functionality across different device families, neither would a rational engineer try to stretch the multi-function, multi-device approach too far, too fast. That tends to lead to devices that aren't the best in either domain.
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