No viruses. No bloatware. No complexity. Computing has suddenly got easier, because the PC made for cloud computing has arrived. This week we assess this radical new computer.
It may look like a netbook, but Google’s Chromebook is a bigger shift from PC computing than tablets. The iPad’s creator Steve Jobs talks about tablets ushering in the ‘post-PC’ era. But tablets still store data on internal drives. They have a desktop. They are vulnerable to viruses. And they work when not connected to the internet.
The Chromebook, on the other hand, works without a traditional desktop or software, its internal data storage is not accessible by the user, and security is not much of an issue. As we’ve discovered, using a Chromebook requires a massive rethink of how you use a computer, but it rewards you with the simplest, purest, computing experience possible. This truly is the computer as an appliance.
Google’s new Chromebooks use the search giant’s browser-based Chrome OS platform, which removes the complexity of a traditional operating system by chucking out everything but the web browser. Moving the entire computing experience to the cloud solves many of the problems plaguing mainstream computers, such as sluggish response times, poor security and complicated maintenance. Chrome OS uses the world wide web as its development platform, and the latest web technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and Adobe Flash power the apps that are available in the Chrome Web Store.
The Chromebook obviously plays to Google’s strengths; Google’s vision of the future revolves entirely around the cloud. Chromebooks have been designed specifically for people who spend most of their time on the web already, but over the longer term, as web apps increase in number and become more capable and broadband bandwidth increases, Google’s plan is for this new class of computer to become the norm.
Over the course of the next week we'll be assessing the Chromebook proposition from every angle. Stay tuned.
