Daring Fireball: Maybe Instead of Two Cars, You Just Need a Car and a Bicycle

http://daringfireball.net/2009/11/a_car_and_a_bicycle

by mattparcher • 17 years ago

63 29 17 years ago

jrockway2• 17 years ago

I use my eee 901 as my primary computer when I am traveling. It can do everything my main computer can do, except store my music and video collection on the internal disk.

SlyShy2• 17 years ago

Yeah. I'm actually completely in love with my AAO (and I even store my music on it, since I got a HD). There's nothing I need a full blown computer for, and if I really need the screen estate and keyboard, then I just use external ones. I've written a huge amount of code on my daily bus ride.

jrockway2• 17 years ago

I use my desktop keyboard, a Happy Hacking Professional, with my netbook. Both fit in my standard laptop backpack with plenty of room, and then I don't have to compromise on the keyboard. (The small screen doesn't bother me; xmonad makes it easy to deal with.)

stcredzero• 17 years ago

A part of the disconnect between the way computing power is packaged and the way people would like to use it, is the way computing power for "information/organizational" functionality is divided from "entertainment" functionality.

For most of what people want to do, a netbook has enough or almost enough horsepower. Heck, even an iPhone has enough power for most of it. The only thing you need a full-blown desktop for is for heavy duty Photoshop, graphics software, gaming, or something demanding like that.

So, note how the form factors are disconnected from capabilities:

    - iPhone - capable of word processing, but lacks a keyboard to do a lot of 
        it comfortably
    - All-in-one desktop machine - often capable of demanding gaming, but 
        marketed as the email/web machine for your grandmother.

I see computing coming in two major forms in the future: highly portable, or home/office integrated.

Much of our personal data will be on devices sized like the iPhone or Blackberry. They will be small enough to go everywhere with us. What doesn't fit there will live in game-console like machines in our homes, or on office workstations/high-end laptops, and will move around using the network. As networks get better, much of that will live in the "cloud."

Given better form factors (dockable screens and keyboards and other, newer input devices) the "go-everywhere" device will subsume more and more of our computing tasks. There will no longer be netbooks. There will be "things that allow us to word process/schedule/surf more comfortably" by providing better form factors for interface, but the data will live in our pocket and be synced with the cloud. There will be "other things with the compute/graphics/storage horsepower for specialized tasks." These will be the "hubs, consoles, workstations." These will be the only stationary things, because they will be the only things that have to be stationary.

Everything else will be interface. (The OQO will live at last!)

SandB0x• 17 years ago

This really reminded me of a Steve Yegge essay: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-requirement...

The easiest way to build a product that kicks ass is to start with someone else's great idea (camcorders, for instance), and take stuff away.

augustus• 17 years ago

The top competition for netbooks and the Chrome OS will the smartphones.

Smartphones are in a position to be your second computer in the next few years. Personally I prefer the smartphone but I can see some people wanting a web only computer.

jasonlbaptiste2• 17 years ago

Agreed. I did not buy an netbook because of my iPhone. I have 3 "computers"- my macbook pro, my iPhone, and my HTPC. Each is running a different OS for its specific purpose. Best of all, they all technically talk to each other.

jasonlbaptiste2• 17 years ago

It's not even so much "do less", but be focused. A mobile device doesn't need EVERYTHING a desktop computer can do. It surely could, but it just doesnt make sense. It needs to be focused on doing things for its purpose. The storm that's brewing is one we haven't seen in 30 years. Computers are no longer just the beige boxes under our desk. They're everywhere, and there's an opportunity for an OS for different purposes. Microsoft may have 90% of the desktop OS market, but... if you calculated up their overall OS market share (desktops, smart phones, cloud/web servers, connected televisions, gaming devices, etc.) i'm sure it's rapidly shrinking and way less than 90%. This is the part where fear usually should start to set in.

cameldrv• 17 years ago

It depends on the person. I like only having one primary computer that I use regularly -- I have a laptop that I plug into an external monitor and keyboard at my desk. A mobile device may not need everything a desktop has, but it is nice to have your whole desktop available wherever you want to carry it.

known• 17 years ago

Yes. Be American and Buy American (including the crude oil). This way American economy will recover.

blasdel• 17 years ago

As someone who presently owns five very different bicycles and has never even had a driver's license, I welcome this computing future.

One of the things that Google appears to be focusing on most intently with ChromeOS is syncing the state of your workspace environment. If they can deliver on that, it'd make it worthwhile to own devices in dissimilar form-factors: like a 1280x800 laptop, a 1024x600 Touchbook, a 800x480 Pandora, and a 320x480 iPhone 3Gs (the latter three all ARM-based!). I'd even use it on a 1920x1200 desktop if they implement a decent tiling idiom.

All I really need is a very nice web browser and some clever NaCL ports.

protomyth2• 17 years ago

When I want an ultra-portable / netbook, I generally am some place with limited access to the internet. I really can't have a device that doesn't work without connectivity. My home machine almost always is connected, so Google's strategy is the exact opposite usecase for me. I guess if you are in a bigger city all the time, Google's model might work for you.

mattparcher• 17 years ago

To be fair, Google has been making strong progress towards offline data storage for Gmail and other apps, and the Chrome OS will presumably incorporate this feature (which is actually part of the HTML 5 specification). This way, you could still access old email and create/edit documents, and the changes would eventually be synced up once you have an internet connection.

protomyth2• 17 years ago

It seemed from all the coverage that no app would work without a connection.

iamelgringo3• 17 years ago

I don't get it. Why are people excited about an OS that does less?

I travel a lot, and I do a lot of programming when I travel. So, I bought an Acer Aspire A150, I got a spare 9 cell battery and I increased the RAM to 2 GB. And, it runs Windows 7 Ultimate like a charm. I have enough battery life to last me a 14 hours of coding movie watching and non-stop music listening. The whole thing is the size of a hard-cover book.

I use Rhapsody for music, which keeps my music libraries synced and Bitbucket for my code. I use Windows mesh to keep other files synced to the "cloud". I can switch seamlessly from my 3 monitor dev box at home to my netbook by doing an "hg pull, hg update"

How does using a "cloud centric" OS help me? Is it cheaper? I got Win 7 Ultimate for free through Bizspark and I have $350 invested in hardware. I don't really see the advantage of hamstringing my OS. Hardware is cheap.

I understand the theoretical advantage to the third world of using less hardware, but when I was in Mexico this spring, netbooks were everywhere. They weren't running Ubuntu, either, they were running pirated copies of Windows.

I'm not trying to troll, but aside from trying to compete with MSFT, how is a cloud centric OS any better than a typical OS?

mbrubeck2• 17 years ago

Some things I find interesting about Chrome OS, even if I don't end up using it myself:

1. Web apps are a plus for a secondary device, because you won't need to copy files back and forth, or install sync/VCS software (a hassle for non-expert users). HTML5/Gears storage remove some of the disadvantages by letting you continue work offline. (On the other hand, services like Dropbox have made it just about easy enough for non-expert users to do this with traditional "local" files.)

2. No user-installed native code means certain security concerns could be greatly reduced. All installed code is signed, verified on boot, mounted on a read-only partition, and can be restored to a pristine state by the firmware. Web apps are subject to browser same-origin policies and to Chrome's process isolation. Downloaded native code can run only in the NaCl sandbox. A broken app can't trash all your stuff, because data from each web site is accessible only to that site. (On the other hand, web apps are almost universally vulnerable to XSS and XSRF and to server-side exploits. NaCL has been broken before and will be broken again. The web security model is a start, but it has flaws both in design and in practice.)

3. The interface is simplified in a few key ways. Instead of windows that represent documents within apps and often have their own separate tabs or pages, everything the user interacts with is a tab within a browser. Not a big deal for savvy computer users, but for novices this is one less concept to learn. Everything is a web page; they don't need to be "installed"; they all appear in the tab strip and have addresses that can be bookmarked and emailed. (On the other hand, web apps share only the most basic UI conventions; they are often radically inconsistent from one to the next.)

4. The Chrome team's obsession with speed may prove to be one of those subtle, hard-to-explain benefits. (Like trying to explain why Apple's obsession with detail matters, to someone who hasn't used their products.) I never had a problem with Firefox until I used Chrome for a few days; now any other browser seems painfully unresponsive. Same thing with git compared to darcs/bzr/svn. When more operations move from "fast" to "instantaneous" it changes the feel of the product, and that affects usage patterns.

5. Compared to Windows, Mac OS X, or normal GNU/Linux distros, Chrome OS has less overall code, is conceptually simpler, and has few legacy/compatibility constraints. If it's managed right, this could mean that it will be faster to evolve and optimize, easier to secure, and ideal for experimenting with new technologies and user interfaces. It will also help motivate next-generation web applications and web standards.

sjs3• 17 years ago

I might dual boot Chrome OS on a netbook type portable. Honestly though, it is not meant for us geeks.

Think about people in countries where it's not common to have an iPod that you want to sync 50GB of music to. Or very casual users.

iamelgringo3• 17 years ago

If I don't have 50GB of music or pictures, am I realistically going to have wireless broadband, or even wired broadband fast enough to make an OS like Chrome useful?

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

I think in your case, your right, Chrome OS doesnt fit.

But eventually there will be Web apps as good as the local programs for doing what you want: BitBucket, for example, could launch an online editor that integrates with them.

Think how much people use the internet, email and chat. I use my netbook almost exclusively for those things - and I dont think I am alone.

iamelgringo3• 17 years ago

But I can do internet, email and chat using any one of the major OS's out there now. What could a web OS do better than a regular OS + browser now?

amilr• 17 years ago

Faster, cheaper, uses less power, and for people who do not need to program or edit videos on the go, much simpler.

ZeroGravitas• 17 years ago

This just shows how ingrained this mindset is. Even Gruber doesn't think there is anyone right now who only needs one or two bikes.

Apparently the world consists only of people with two computers. Nobody has a single computer that is overseeving their needs and it is inconcievable that there are people who simply haven't bought one yet, perhaps because they are overwhelmed by their complexity.

Daring Fireball: Maybe Instead of Two Cars, You Just Need a Car and a Bicycle

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