Google could be about to launch the first netbook running their new Chrome operating system, as they host an event in San Francisco tomorrow promising 'exciting news'.
Chrome OS is designed to be a 'cloud' operating system, designed to be lightweight, quick to start up, and based around online applications rather than the traditional desktop programs most operating systems rely on.
Engadget reports that Google will initially only be releasing 65,000 of the machines, mostly going to Google's "friends and family."
So how big a change could the new operating system represent? Perhaps every user will have a different view. One might argue that device operating systems are less important than they used to be, simply because much of the important stuff people do now is a web interaction of some sort.
Still, many users will continue to have one or several important apps that require use of a Windows or iOS environment, typically related to work requirements. For lots of other users without these constraints, the choice might be an iOS environment (driven less by OS considerations than the fact that desire to use Apple devices drive the purchase) or Windows or some other OS that offers a lower device purchase cost (whether directly related to the OS cost or not).
Some of us now do virtually all of our "work" on the web, or using the Internet. I recently realized that the only times I will ever "work" on a PC of any sort is long enough to edit one or two blog posts on an airplane. At all other times, I am connected to the Internet or I don't use the PC. That's just an illustration of the fact that, these days, "doing things with PCs" means "doing things on the Internet."
But that also means the device OS is much less important than it used to be, and removes barriers to adoption of new operating systems. Aside from the fact that using an iPad has more to do with coolness than functionality at this point, many will say a key feature is the "instant on" capability, eliminating the time spent waiting for the OS to load. Aside from everything else, that probably is going to be a more-important feature, going forward, for smartphones, tablets and PCs.
If, every time you power up a PC, tablet, or smartphone, you have to wait, it is a reminder that there is something about that device which is annoying. For users who don't have to power up, and power down, their devices frequently during the day, that irritation might not happen so often. For some, who might frequently have to do so (flying, changing planes, sitting in conference sessions where they want mobiles turned off, using wireless microphones where the devices really have to be off or there is signal interference, or just users who don't like the devices being "on" for other reasons as they move about...such as the danger of disabling a hotel room key card), "instant on" will be a welcome feature throughout the day, simply because devices get turned off and on frequently.
The point is that changing an operating system does not require so much thinking as it used to. That, in turn, makes other attributes of the experience more important.
