If they mean that I think about doing it on my phone, decide against it because the UX sucks for anything more than a text message, ultimately do it on my PC anyway, then yes. But I don't think...
If they mean that I think about doing it on my phone, decide against it because the UX sucks for anything more than a text message, ultimately do it on my PC anyway, then yes.
But I don't think that's what they mean. A lot of people, school kids for example, write entire essays on their phone.
Same here, about once a week I'll search for something with my phone, find the info I need to be on a site with either bad UI/UX on mobile or is something I want to investigate further on my...
Same here, about once a week I'll search for something with my phone, find the info I need to be on a site with either bad UI/UX on mobile or is something I want to investigate further on my computer or is simply more information dense than a phone reasonably allows and I'll send it to my computer via KDE to look at later, but that's it. I'm not "starting a task" on my phone and finishing on a laptop (which I don't have in the first place). At most I'll send a recipe from my phone to my old Surface tablet that is pretty much only used for that purpose and reading ebooks.
In every sci fi movie ever, when someone has something on their phone/terminal/data slate/padd and they want to show other people in the room, or work on it more intently, then pull out their...
In every sci fi movie ever, when someone has something on their phone/terminal/data slate/padd and they want to show other people in the room, or work on it more intently, then pull out their handheld device, and then make a fling gesture with their finger towards the receiving device, where it instantly goes up on the big screen/computer.
It always seems so intuitive and easy, and it's absolutely shocking to me that it's 2026, we've had smart phones with intuitive touch based interfaces for like 20 years now, and I still can't do that.
Chromecast was probably the closest thing, but the experience sucks, it's not an open standard, and it's not nearly as intuitive as just pointing at a screen and flinging.
Just invent the "fling to big screen" protocol already. It can't be as hard as flying cars.
I am sure you are being a little flippant here but fling to device implies a knowledge in space of where other devices are. That's not easy. Unless you have some kind of always on ble mesh that everyone participates in to do network tomography and generate points in space and the devices are dense enough and diverse enough to make the derived coordinates accurate.
I do. It’s all done in the web browser. I will post to Tildes using one device and check in using a different device. I might do it more if Tildes supported draft comments, but that’s very...
I do. It’s all done in the web browser. I will post to Tildes using one device and check in using a different device. I might do it more if Tildes supported draft comments, but that’s very unlikely now.
I also commonly ask the AI to start a software development task in whichever device I’m using and check on it later.
I might sometimes think about something while on the move. Do some quick research on my phone or at least have something noted down so that at some point later I can pick it up on my desktop. But...
I might sometimes think about something while on the move. Do some quick research on my phone or at least have something noted down so that at some point later I can pick it up on my desktop.
But that is really nothing more than having a tab open with some search results or something as sort of reminder to my thought at the moment. Similar to how someone else might note down a reminder I guess.
But nothing like really switching between phones and laptops/desktops. Uh I guess that sometimes I will watch a series both at home and while commuting to work on the train. But that experience does not require a mobile OS on my desktop.
The only thing I do that my phone and PC share is Firefox. I do open panels from one on the other and vice versa, as sometimes I want to read a thing I started on first and want to continue on...
The only thing I do that my phone and PC share is Firefox. I do open panels from one on the other and vice versa, as sometimes I want to read a thing I started on first and want to continue on second device. Think reading on PC and continuing on phone on toilet... Or reading some manual or technical thing on phone and then opening it on desktop and executing commends there.
That's the only thing I kinda do on both combined. Thanks to Firefox account and sharing of tabs throughout my devices, not to Google.
I mean, I have done it. I don't regularly though. The idea of even starting something I'd consider a "task" on a phone fills me with dread. Phones are for communicating and staring blankly at...
I mean, I have done it. I don't regularly though. The idea of even starting something I'd consider a "task" on a phone fills me with dread. Phones are for communicating and staring blankly at while they broadcast slop at you. Not for doing actual productive things.
Rarely (iPhone + MacBook). What I do use are other stuff of Apple's Continuity, such as Universal Clipboard and Safari's Cloud Tabs (this one might be from iCloud, though). Can we say that...
Rarely (iPhone + MacBook). What I do use are other stuff of Apple's Continuity, such as Universal Clipboard and Safari's Cloud Tabs (this one might be from iCloud, though).
Can we say that switching tasks between phone and laptop is overrated? Also, you'd be much better with Linux (a proper desktop OS) + Android using KDE Connect.
I don't, but that's because I can type really quickly and hate all the "modern" Swype replacements. Many apps also don't handle interruption well, whatever I typed will disappear if I need to...
I don't, but that's because I can type really quickly and hate all the "modern" Swype replacements. Many apps also don't handle interruption well, whatever I typed will disappear if I need to handle something else for anything more than a minute or so.
I'm also old enough to need reading glasses but haven't yet gotten into the habit of carrying them around with me, but that isn't going to be a concern for a younger person.
I was really good with T9 back in the day, I might feel differently today if I hadn't had that or the original Swype experience.
I see a lot of discussion about if this will or won't be good, but no one is bringing up the fact Google already tried this in 2013 with the Chromebook Pixel. It was a premium laptop that ran...
I see a lot of discussion about if this will or won't be good, but no one is bringing up the fact Google already tried this in 2013 with the Chromebook Pixel. It was a premium laptop that ran ChromeOS. The reviews after it came out were that the hardware was nice, but running ChromeOS severely limited it's usefulness. Google then killed the product line a few years after.
So now they are doing the same thing with seemingly the same problem. A premium laptop with an OS that isn't particularly useful for laptop usage.
A review by The Verge said "Just like the iPad Pro, the Pixelbook is an incredibly nice and powerful machine that can handle most of your computing tasks — but probably not all of them.
This just feels like a very classic Google where they half halfheartedly attempt a product, don't finish the job, cancel it, then re-announce it every so often.
Probably because of the intense marketing and discounts to the schools. I'm all for anything that forces OS diversity, but I also know it's the most common business playbook from Microsoft to...
Probably because of the intense marketing and discounts to the schools.
I'm all for anything that forces OS diversity, but I also know it's the most common business playbook from Microsoft to Marlboro: get them hooked early.
Schools like them (among other things) specifically because they CAN’T run other software and have features like being able to lock down the browser for test taking etc. Easier to manage. Not so...
Schools like them (among other things) specifically because they CAN’T run other software and have features like being able to lock down the browser for test taking etc.
I think the thing is that chromebooks are really useful. Time and again Google itself tries (or incentivizes a partner to try... Looking at you Acer Expertbook) high end chromebooks and for a...
I think the thing is that chromebooks are really useful. Time and again Google itself tries (or incentivizes a partner to try... Looking at you Acer Expertbook) high end chromebooks and for a multitude of reasons, there's just not appetite for it.
Whether it's reputation or reality, ChromeOS isn't seen as useful, or maybe rather more useful, on higher end hardware. Is ChromeOS really all most people need for their computing? Yeah, just look at how many people only do "computer" tasks on their phones. Most things are web-based now, which Google is right on about can easily be started on a phone and moved to a laptop but that doesn't require good hardware or a premium price-tag. (Whether or not we'll ever see non-premium price tags again is a different discussion.)
I think those higher-end devices were partly to set an example for other Chromebook manufacturers and partly they were what Google wanted for their own employees. The higher price is in part to...
I think those higher-end devices were partly to set an example for other Chromebook manufacturers and partly they were what Google wanted for their own employees. The higher price is in part to compensate for low volume.
Or maybe that’s just cope? If they sold well, I assume they would have kept making them.
With Android phones, they sort of started that way, but Pixel was good enough to keep going.
I think the people who do everything in the web browser are better served by an ipad with a keyboard case. It's just hard to imagine who the market for a high end chromebook is. And it doesn't...
I think the people who do everything in the web browser are better served by an ipad with a keyboard case. It's just hard to imagine who the market for a high end chromebook is. And it doesn't seem to just be me considering they have launched this product twice already and it has flopped. Now launching again with no changes other than calling it Gemini powered or whatever.
I mean, an iPad air with the magic keyboard is like $900. That's a lot more than a chromebook. Will it be much better? Of course. The M4 or M5 in one of those will run circles so fast around a...
I think the people who do everything in the web browser are better served by an ipad with a keyboard case.
I mean, an iPad air with the magic keyboard is like $900. That's a lot more than a chromebook.
Will it be much better? Of course. The M4 or M5 in one of those will run circles so fast around a chromebook it'll break the laws of causality. But it's over 2x the price.
A Macbook Neo and an iPhone 17 will set you back around $1200 if you needed to buy both to get into the Apple ecosystem. I'm willing to bet that the experience is worth the ~$200 more that you...
A Macbook Neo and an iPhone 17 will set you back around $1200 if you needed to buy both to get into the Apple ecosystem. I'm willing to bet that the experience is worth the ~$200 more that you would pay over buying one of these new Googlebooks.
Or, I agree, an iPad air with a keyboard would probably cover most people.
The ipad has full keyboard and mouse support and Apple sells cases with a trackpad. It also just has a much better OS and app support. Google never fully commits to android tablets so app...
The ipad has full keyboard and mouse support and Apple sells cases with a trackpad. It also just has a much better OS and app support. Google never fully commits to android tablets so app developers don't either.
Google has been trying to push this idea of using Chrome as your entire OS for a very long time now and it has never caught on so it's starting to feel like it's just not that good of an idea.
I mourn my Pixelbook. It's a beautiful machine. I installed Ubuntu on it after ChromeOS stopped getting updated, but then it bricked and it's been collecting dust. Even though the screen was 4:3,...
I mourn my Pixelbook. It's a beautiful machine. I installed Ubuntu on it after ChromeOS stopped getting updated, but then it bricked and it's been collecting dust. Even though the screen was 4:3, I loved using it. The keyboard had incredible feel.
Costs more than a MacBook Neo or a decent entry level windows computer and can’t run anything useful. Put in on the ever increasing pile of Google hardware and software that will lose support...
Costs more than a MacBook Neo or a decent entry level windows computer and can’t run anything useful. Put in on the ever increasing pile of Google hardware and software that will lose support after 2 years.
Chrome is useful. There are many useful Android apps. They normally promise 10 years of updates for Chromebooks nowadays and they are saying “up to 10 years” of updates for this one. (Which...
Chrome is useful. There are many useful Android apps. They normally promise 10 years of updates for Chromebooks nowadays and they are saying “up to 10 years” of updates for this one.
(Which admittedly leaves a lot of wiggle room, but still, stop making shit up that you could look up.)
I already responded to you once, so this feels a little superfluous but anyway: There are tons of useful android apps! I already have two devices that run them. Why would I want an expensive third...
I already responded to you once, so this feels a little superfluous but anyway:
There are tons of useful android apps! I already have two devices that run them. Why would I want an expensive third device that has the same limitations as my phone?
And even if they make good on all ten years of updates, that doesn't mean that it's ten years of meaningful updates. It could just as easily be "minor security patch" for 8 of those ten years. Or Google could do right like it did for it's Pixel Tablet owners (all dozens of them!). But also they discontinued the tablet which feels kind of incongruous. Google's gotta keep us guessing, never let us predict their next move.
Security updates only is what I want when the alternative is that they’re making the OS worse. I’ve deliberately stayed on older versions of MacOS for years.
Security updates only is what I want when the alternative is that they’re making the OS worse. I’ve deliberately stayed on older versions of MacOS for years.
Nobody argues against that. The issue is running Android apps in a laptop. I mean, see what they (didn't) do with Android tablets to get a picture to where this one will land…
There are many useful Android apps.
Nobody argues against that. The issue is running Android apps in a laptop. I mean, see what they (didn't) do with Android tablets to get a picture to where this one will land…
Yeah, they've had some half-hearted attempts. Maybe they'll get it this time? I guess we'll see. I had an Android tablet and it was okay for some things. I prefer web apps whenever possible.
Yeah, they've had some half-hearted attempts. Maybe they'll get it this time? I guess we'll see.
I had an Android tablet and it was okay for some things. I prefer web apps whenever possible.
Considering how horrible the android tablet experience is, and how nothing the Chromebook experience is, I don't have high hopes for a new platform merging both of them. But hey! Gemini...
Considering how horrible the android tablet experience is, and how nothing the Chromebook experience is, I don't have high hopes for a new platform merging both of them. But hey! Gemini Intelligence! Will wonders ever cease?
Edit: Granted, the general user experience on both tablet products isn't great, but I still think the iPad just wins on love and app support. Although that window is closing
Can you say more about the "window is closing"? I'm not sure if you mean Android tablets and iPads are getting closer to feature parity, or you think iPads are getting squeezed by the iPhone Duo...
Can you say more about the "window is closing"?
I'm not sure if you mean Android tablets and iPads are getting closer to feature parity, or you think iPads are getting squeezed by the iPhone Duo and maybe the Neo to where they might go away, or something else.
I'm saying the iPad UX is going down hill, ever since they added the Stage Manager and Windowed Apps thing. Yes, it works, I guess, but it's not a nice experience if you don't have their trackpad...
I'm saying the iPad UX is going down hill, ever since they added the Stage Manager and Windowed Apps thing. Yes, it works, I guess, but it's not a nice experience if you don't have their trackpad and keyboard accessory. I know my husband, who uses it for only drawing, is constantly getting tripped up with properly splitting two apps side by side. It's not horrible, but it's certainly not great either. And I do feel like this is only going to keep happening as Apple puts more and more powerful chips in the things, especially because everyone worth their weight in salt in the Apple space knows that they'll NEVER merge the two. I could be wrong, but I'm not.
I vaguely remember settings to disable things like this. Might be worth a look? When I upgrade the OS, part of it is finding what new things to disable.
I vaguely remember settings to disable things like this. Might be worth a look?
When I upgrade the OS, part of it is finding what new things to disable.
I wouldn't go as far as to call chromebooks and now this a trash but it is a very poor value for personal usage when opportunity cost is factored in. Even taking cheapest chromebooks available it...
I wouldn't go as far as to call chromebooks and now this a trash but it is a very poor value for personal usage when opportunity cost is factored in.
Even taking cheapest chromebooks available it is possible to buy used business class latop for that price, put a Linux on it and have better experience and more options.
The problem is the os which is even worse than Windows.
Personally I would actually like phone laptop integration or even convergence mode on a phone. Hardware wise phones are good enough for anything except specialized workflows. But the first needed step would be solid os for them which does not exist.
Nice lapslop. I couldn't help but compare the product pages for this and Macbook Neo. The Googlebook one is practically devoid of any humans using it, while Macbook Neo shows it being held and...
Nice lapslop.
I couldn't help but compare the product pages for this and Macbook Neo. The Googlebook one is practically devoid of any humans using it, while Macbook Neo shows it being held and used by humans. The whole lineup looks like they just pull some generic laptop model from each of the manufacturers and kneecap it with ChromeOS (oh I meant, Googlebook OS because they like to do meaningless rebrands).
I know tech companies are pretty soulless organizations, but Google really puts in the additional effort to make their products feels extra soulless by the way they market their devices and services.
I'll give it less than 5 years. Probably dead in 2-3 years, because some execs would want to rebrand this to GeminiBook.
I was excited, but at that price tag, to surf the Internet, no thanks. These will either be heavily discounted in a year or the entire Googlebook category will be gone in 2 years. I don't know...
I was excited, but at that price tag, to surf the Internet, no thanks. These will either be heavily discounted in a year or the entire Googlebook category will be gone in 2 years. I don't know what solution this is solving or who the target market is at this price point. I can't imagine sales will be good.
I feel like this product is unlikely to succeed but I can see their vision here. Apple has always had the upperhand with first party support for mobile and desktop/laptop integration. For Android...
I feel like this product is unlikely to succeed but I can see their vision here. Apple has always had the upperhand with first party support for mobile and desktop/laptop integration. For Android users there has always been the extra step of downloading and setting up an app/program on your phone, computer, or both. However, the killer feature that people want that is absent from the marketing material is the ability to send/receive texts from your phone on your laptop. Yes, I know you can do that by installing programs on your devices to do that, but for the average person it needs to be first party program that works out of the box.
Reading through the page, most of the features already exist if you use a Mac + iOS device, and that's probably exactly what Google is trying to reproduce. Microsoft isn't going to do it, Apple...
Reading through the page, most of the features already exist if you use a Mac + iOS device, and that's probably exactly what Google is trying to reproduce. Microsoft isn't going to do it, Apple isn't going to do it (for Android), so Google is going to try to do it. It's honestly not a bad idea, to my mind; but with Google's institutional ADHD and the weird incentives the hardware partners probably have, I really can't see this taking off.
I see the vision that Google has. They want to replicate the "Apple ecosystem" and try and take part of that pie. The first problem is that they have tried this a dozen times and just can't do it....
I see the vision that Google has. They want to replicate the "Apple ecosystem" and try and take part of that pie.
The first problem is that they have tried this a dozen times and just can't do it.
A half dozen text/chat/video apps have come from and have been subsequently killed by Google. Near zero adoption of any of them other than Messages, the stock texting app.
How many piece of hardware has Google released that could be part of an ecosystem? Right now you could get a Pixel phone, Pixel watch, Pixel tablet, and a Pixel book. But they don't really play all that well together. Google seems to be under the impression that just one more piece of hardware will solve this instead of just correcting their fractured, disjointed ecosystem.
Their internal incentives double-down on that institutional ADHD by incentivizing people to jump to whatever the next project is instead of supporting any existing product. The money, internal fame, and internal power are all wrapped up in producing the next "thing"... literally any "thing" instead of continuing support or producing a good thing.
I'm not an Apple guy and I find their operating system to be confusing but I occasionally have to use a Mac <Whatever Model> at work or watch someone use a Mac Book, iPhone, and Mac <whatever they call their desktops now> and it's apparent how much more strategic Apple is at keeping their ecosystem functioning.
“Institutional ADHD” sums up a big part of my distrust of Google. They have consistently and repeatedly shown that they can’t see things through. It’s almost like the things that have survived are...
“Institutional ADHD” sums up a big part of my distrust of Google. They have consistently and repeatedly shown that they can’t see things through. It’s almost like the things that have survived are the most basic versions of things that people categorically expect to be able to use and they STILL aren’t that good (mail and the various productivity apps). I mean, Jesus fuck, the search in Gmail is catastrophically bad, especially from a search company.
So, the have shown they can’t support and improve their bread and butter products, and they routinely kill their latest and greatest.
I mean they aren't a search company, they are an advertising company whose main way to insert ads masquarades as a search engine. Going by the demonstrated quality I don't believe search was...
I mean they aren't a search company, they are an advertising company whose main way to insert ads masquarades as a search engine.
Going by the demonstrated quality I don't believe search was actually important to them after something like 2012-2015.
I think it is worth pointing out that Google is the only one that can do it. The reason Apple has managed to make such seamless integration between devices is because they make the operating...
Microsoft isn't going to do it, Apple isn't going to do it (for Android), so Google is going to try to do it.
I think it is worth pointing out that Google is the only one that can do it. The reason Apple has managed to make such seamless integration between devices is because they make the operating system on both ends. Microsoft doesn't have control over mobile, so they can add things to make one side frictionless but not the other.
There's a desktop website for Google messages that you can link to your phone and text from. https://messages.google.com/web/ I know it's not native but visiting a website is pretty darn close.
There's a desktop website for Google messages that you can link to your phone and text from.
Not knowing the specifics of Apple's implementation, I am unsure of how competitive of an offering this is. But yeah, a web app that achieves the goal is pretty close to first party.
Not knowing the specifics of Apple's implementation, I am unsure of how competitive of an offering this is. But yeah, a web app that achieves the goal is pretty close to first party.
This is vague, but it looks like it will run Linux, too: No gui apparently, but I do nearly all my development work in either a web browser or terminal nowadays.
This is vague, but it looks like it will run Linux, too:
It also features a first for the laptop category: a Level 5 security-certified pKVM hypervisor. This hypervisor powers an isolated Linux environment with a full terminal access, so you can safely run any Linux developer tools, pull code repositories, or execute autonomous agents.
No gui apparently, but I do nearly all my development work in either a web browser or terminal nowadays.
I had the precursor pixelbook and the containerized linux support was pretty useful. You could shortcut apps installed in the linux container and run them alongside regular chromeOS and android...
I had the precursor pixelbook and the containerized linux support was pretty useful. You could shortcut apps installed in the linux container and run them alongside regular chromeOS and android apps.
I ended up just swapping the entire thing over to linux later, though I don't recall if it had support for that at launch.
I'd be interested in seeing reviews or people using it, mainly, but no way in hell would I spend a premium Linux laptop/Macbook Air money on that. Back when I had my Chromebook ($100, was curious...
I'd be interested in seeing reviews or people using it, mainly, but no way in hell would I spend a premium Linux laptop/Macbook Air money on that.
Back when I had my Chromebook ($100, was curious about the ecosystem) I ended up doing the Mr Chromebox thing and run GalliumOS and NixOS on it, if there's no way to make these useful when they go EOL... Yeah I don't see these gaining traction. Just ewaste/landfill material.
I’m of much the same opinion as you. I’m still very much pissed off at Google for promising that my device would get access to the Play Store and simply never delivering it. Beyond that, simply...
I’m of much the same opinion as you. I’m still very much pissed off at Google for promising that my device would get access to the Play Store and simply never delivering it. Beyond that, simply chrooting the device to install Firefox on early ChromeOS gave massive performance boosts because Chrome was and still is a massive memory hog and doesn’t really make sense for devices of the caliber that they put them on (which can still have as little as 4GB). Which I guess is fine for Googlebooks?
Pretty much everything Google has done since roughly the year 2008 has been to burn any and all of the goodwill they had built with me in the years before, and my trust has long burnt out. That play store thing is probably the thing that did it; they just stayed silent about the issue and the support period has ended so it’s just never going to happen.
Do we? Am I alone in saying I never do this?
If they mean that I think about doing it on my phone, decide against it because the UX sucks for anything more than a text message, ultimately do it on my PC anyway, then yes.
But I don't think that's what they mean. A lot of people, school kids for example, write entire essays on their phone.
Same here, about once a week I'll search for something with my phone, find the info I need to be on a site with either bad UI/UX on mobile or is something I want to investigate further on my computer or is simply more information dense than a phone reasonably allows and I'll send it to my computer via KDE to look at later, but that's it. I'm not "starting a task" on my phone and finishing on a laptop (which I don't have in the first place). At most I'll send a recipe from my phone to my old Surface tablet that is pretty much only used for that purpose and reading ebooks.
Firefox Android > Share > Send to Device > Desktop
Done. Saved 900 bucks.
In every sci fi movie ever, when someone has something on their phone/terminal/data slate/padd and they want to show other people in the room, or work on it more intently, then pull out their handheld device, and then make a fling gesture with their finger towards the receiving device, where it instantly goes up on the big screen/computer.
It always seems so intuitive and easy, and it's absolutely shocking to me that it's 2026, we've had smart phones with intuitive touch based interfaces for like 20 years now, and I still can't do that.
Chromecast was probably the closest thing, but the experience sucks, it's not an open standard, and it's not nearly as intuitive as just pointing at a screen and flinging.
Just invent the "fling to big screen" protocol already. It can't be as hard as flying cars.
We have had flying cars for a good long while now. They are simply neither economical, efficient or practical for purposes cars are now used for.
I am sure you are being a little flippant here but fling to device implies a knowledge in space of where other devices are. That's not easy. Unless you have some kind of always on ble mesh that everyone participates in to do network tomography and generate points in space and the devices are dense enough and diverse enough to make the derived coordinates accurate.Somehow I missed the bit about flying cars lol
I do. It’s all done in the web browser. I will post to Tildes using one device and check in using a different device. I might do it more if Tildes supported draft comments, but that’s very unlikely now.
I also commonly ask the AI to start a software development task in whichever device I’m using and check on it later.
Three cheers does within the app. Controls are at before to the left of the comment box.
I might sometimes think about something while on the move. Do some quick research on my phone or at least have something noted down so that at some point later I can pick it up on my desktop.
But that is really nothing more than having a tab open with some search results or something as sort of reminder to my thought at the moment. Similar to how someone else might note down a reminder I guess.
But nothing like really switching between phones and laptops/desktops. Uh I guess that sometimes I will watch a series both at home and while commuting to work on the train. But that experience does not require a mobile OS on my desktop.
The only thing I do that my phone and PC share is Firefox. I do open panels from one on the other and vice versa, as sometimes I want to read a thing I started on first and want to continue on second device. Think reading on PC and continuing on phone on toilet... Or reading some manual or technical thing on phone and then opening it on desktop and executing commends there.
That's the only thing I kinda do on both combined. Thanks to Firefox account and sharing of tabs throughout my devices, not to Google.
I mean, I have done it. I don't regularly though. The idea of even starting something I'd consider a "task" on a phone fills me with dread. Phones are for communicating and staring blankly at while they broadcast slop at you. Not for doing actual productive things.
Rarely (iPhone + MacBook). What I do use are other stuff of Apple's Continuity, such as Universal Clipboard and Safari's Cloud Tabs (this one might be from iCloud, though).
Can we say that switching tasks between phone and laptop is overrated? Also, you'd be much better with Linux (a proper desktop OS) + Android using KDE Connect.
I don't, but that's because I can type really quickly and hate all the "modern" Swype replacements. Many apps also don't handle interruption well, whatever I typed will disappear if I need to handle something else for anything more than a minute or so.
I'm also old enough to need reading glasses but haven't yet gotten into the habit of carrying them around with me, but that isn't going to be a concern for a younger person.
I was really good with T9 back in the day, I might feel differently today if I hadn't had that or the original Swype experience.
If I'm writing more than two paragraphs, I pretty much always write my comment in obsidian, usually starting on mobile and finishing on my desktop.
I see a lot of discussion about if this will or won't be good, but no one is bringing up the fact Google already tried this in 2013 with the Chromebook Pixel. It was a premium laptop that ran ChromeOS. The reviews after it came out were that the hardware was nice, but running ChromeOS severely limited it's usefulness. Google then killed the product line a few years after.
So now they are doing the same thing with seemingly the same problem. A premium laptop with an OS that isn't particularly useful for laptop usage.
Edit: Actually they tried this again in 2017.
This just feels like a very classic Google where they half halfheartedly attempt a product, don't finish the job, cancel it, then re-announce it every so often.
These were useful machines. Particular models come and go, but Chromebooks have been popular for a long time.
Probably because of the intense marketing and discounts to the schools.
I'm all for anything that forces OS diversity, but I also know it's the most common business playbook from Microsoft to Marlboro: get them hooked early.
Schools like them (among other things) specifically because they CAN’T run other software and have features like being able to lock down the browser for test taking etc.
Easier to manage. Not so useful for other things.
They're also good for giving to relatives who aren't very computer-savvy, because it's hard for them to mess it up.
Yea, and that's sad. I learned the most by mucking around and doing stuff I wasn't supposed to be doing at school.
Good old 'net send'.
I think the thing is that chromebooks are really useful. Time and again Google itself tries (or incentivizes a partner to try... Looking at you Acer Expertbook) high end chromebooks and for a multitude of reasons, there's just not appetite for it.
Whether it's reputation or reality, ChromeOS isn't seen as useful, or maybe rather more useful, on higher end hardware. Is ChromeOS really all most people need for their computing? Yeah, just look at how many people only do "computer" tasks on their phones. Most things are web-based now, which Google is right on about can easily be started on a phone and moved to a laptop but that doesn't require good hardware or a premium price-tag. (Whether or not we'll ever see non-premium price tags again is a different discussion.)
I think those higher-end devices were partly to set an example for other Chromebook manufacturers and partly they were what Google wanted for their own employees. The higher price is in part to compensate for low volume.
Or maybe that’s just cope? If they sold well, I assume they would have kept making them.
With Android phones, they sort of started that way, but Pixel was good enough to keep going.
I think the people who do everything in the web browser are better served by an ipad with a keyboard case. It's just hard to imagine who the market for a high end chromebook is. And it doesn't seem to just be me considering they have launched this product twice already and it has flopped. Now launching again with no changes other than calling it Gemini powered or whatever.
I mean, an iPad air with the magic keyboard is like $900. That's a lot more than a chromebook.
Will it be much better? Of course. The M4 or M5 in one of those will run circles so fast around a chromebook it'll break the laws of causality. But it's over 2x the price.
Could also just get a macbook neo.
A Macbook Neo and an iPhone 17 will set you back around $1200 if you needed to buy both to get into the Apple ecosystem. I'm willing to bet that the experience is worth the ~$200 more that you would pay over buying one of these new Googlebooks.
Or, I agree, an iPad air with a keyboard would probably cover most people.
iPhone 17 now starts at $900 and MacBook Neo at $700.
Not necessarily. There are people who have trouble with touch screens.
The ipad has full keyboard and mouse support and Apple sells cases with a trackpad. It also just has a much better OS and app support. Google never fully commits to android tablets so app developers don't either.
Google has been trying to push this idea of using Chrome as your entire OS for a very long time now and it has never caught on so it's starting to feel like it's just not that good of an idea.
And yet, it works well for someone in my family.
I mourn my Pixelbook. It's a beautiful machine. I installed Ubuntu on it after ChromeOS stopped getting updated, but then it bricked and it's been collecting dust. Even though the screen was 4:3, I loved using it. The keyboard had incredible feel.
I had one (via Ebay), installed normal Debian on it, great machine.
(obviously it died to a cup of tea)
Costs more than a MacBook Neo or a decent entry level windows computer and can’t run anything useful. Put in on the ever increasing pile of Google hardware and software that will lose support after 2 years.
Chrome is useful. There are many useful Android apps. They normally promise 10 years of updates for Chromebooks nowadays and they are saying “up to 10 years” of updates for this one.
(Which admittedly leaves a lot of wiggle room, but still, stop making shit up that you could look up.)
I already responded to you once, so this feels a little superfluous but anyway:
There are tons of useful android apps! I already have two devices that run them. Why would I want an expensive third device that has the same limitations as my phone?
And even if they make good on all ten years of updates, that doesn't mean that it's ten years of meaningful updates. It could just as easily be "minor security patch" for 8 of those ten years. Or Google could do right like it did for it's Pixel Tablet owners (all dozens of them!). But also they discontinued the tablet which feels kind of incongruous. Google's gotta keep us guessing, never let us predict their next move.
Security updates only is what I want when the alternative is that they’re making the OS worse. I’ve deliberately stayed on older versions of MacOS for years.
Nobody argues against that. The issue is running Android apps in a laptop. I mean, see what they (didn't) do with Android tablets to get a picture to where this one will land…
Yeah, they've had some half-hearted attempts. Maybe they'll get it this time? I guess we'll see.
I had an Android tablet and it was okay for some things. I prefer web apps whenever possible.
Considering how horrible the android tablet experience is, and how nothing the Chromebook experience is, I don't have high hopes for a new platform merging both of them. But hey! Gemini Intelligence! Will wonders ever cease?
Edit: Granted, the general user experience on both tablet products isn't great, but I still think the iPad just wins on love and app support. Although that window is closing
Can you say more about the "window is closing"?
I'm not sure if you mean Android tablets and iPads are getting closer to feature parity, or you think iPads are getting squeezed by the iPhone Duo and maybe the Neo to where they might go away, or something else.
I'm saying the iPad UX is going down hill, ever since they added the Stage Manager and Windowed Apps thing. Yes, it works, I guess, but it's not a nice experience if you don't have their trackpad and keyboard accessory. I know my husband, who uses it for only drawing, is constantly getting tripped up with properly splitting two apps side by side. It's not horrible, but it's certainly not great either. And I do feel like this is only going to keep happening as Apple puts more and more powerful chips in the things, especially because everyone worth their weight in salt in the Apple space knows that they'll NEVER merge the two. I could be wrong, but I'm not.
I vaguely remember settings to disable things like this. Might be worth a look?
When I upgrade the OS, part of it is finding what new things to disable.
You can, I'm not saying you can't, but it's obviously the intended experience. It's what's on all the marketing materials, certainly.
I wouldn't go as far as to call chromebooks and now this a trash but it is a very poor value for personal usage when opportunity cost is factored in.
Even taking cheapest chromebooks available it is possible to buy used business class latop for that price, put a Linux on it and have better experience and more options.
The problem is the os which is even worse than Windows.
Personally I would actually like phone laptop integration or even convergence mode on a phone. Hardware wise phones are good enough for anything except specialized workflows. But the first needed step would be solid os for them which does not exist.
Nice lapslop.
I couldn't help but compare the product pages for this and Macbook Neo. The Googlebook one is practically devoid of any humans using it, while Macbook Neo shows it being held and used by humans. The whole lineup looks like they just pull some generic laptop model from each of the manufacturers and kneecap it with ChromeOS (oh I meant, Googlebook OS because they like to do meaningless rebrands).
I know tech companies are pretty soulless organizations, but Google really puts in the additional effort to make their products feels extra soulless by the way they market their devices and services.
I'll give it less than 5 years. Probably dead in 2-3 years, because some execs would want to rebrand this to GeminiBook.
Well this is a different operating system, not exactly a rebrand.
I was excited, but at that price tag, to surf the Internet, no thanks. These will either be heavily discounted in a year or the entire Googlebook category will be gone in 2 years. I don't know what solution this is solving or who the target market is at this price point. I can't imagine sales will be good.
I feel like this product is unlikely to succeed but I can see their vision here. Apple has always had the upperhand with first party support for mobile and desktop/laptop integration. For Android users there has always been the extra step of downloading and setting up an app/program on your phone, computer, or both. However, the killer feature that people want that is absent from the marketing material is the ability to send/receive texts from your phone on your laptop. Yes, I know you can do that by installing programs on your devices to do that, but for the average person it needs to be first party program that works out of the box.
Reading through the page, most of the features already exist if you use a Mac + iOS device, and that's probably exactly what Google is trying to reproduce. Microsoft isn't going to do it, Apple isn't going to do it (for Android), so Google is going to try to do it. It's honestly not a bad idea, to my mind; but with Google's institutional ADHD and the weird incentives the hardware partners probably have, I really can't see this taking off.
I see the vision that Google has. They want to replicate the "Apple ecosystem" and try and take part of that pie.
The first problem is that they have tried this a dozen times and just can't do it.
I'm not an Apple guy and I find their operating system to be confusing but I occasionally have to use a Mac <Whatever Model> at work or watch someone use a Mac Book, iPhone, and Mac <whatever they call their desktops now> and it's apparent how much more strategic Apple is at keeping their ecosystem functioning.
“Institutional ADHD” sums up a big part of my distrust of Google. They have consistently and repeatedly shown that they can’t see things through. It’s almost like the things that have survived are the most basic versions of things that people categorically expect to be able to use and they STILL aren’t that good (mail and the various productivity apps). I mean, Jesus fuck, the search in Gmail is catastrophically bad, especially from a search company.
So, the have shown they can’t support and improve their bread and butter products, and they routinely kill their latest and greatest.
Why wouldn’t give them money?
I mean they aren't a search company, they are an advertising company whose main way to insert ads masquarades as a search engine.
Going by the demonstrated quality I don't believe search was actually important to them after something like 2012-2015.
I think it is worth pointing out that Google is the only one that can do it. The reason Apple has managed to make such seamless integration between devices is because they make the operating system on both ends. Microsoft doesn't have control over mobile, so they can add things to make one side frictionless but not the other.
There's a desktop website for Google messages that you can link to your phone and text from.
https://messages.google.com/web/
I know it's not native but visiting a website is pretty darn close.
Not knowing the specifics of Apple's implementation, I am unsure of how competitive of an offering this is. But yeah, a web app that achieves the goal is pretty close to first party.
This is vague, but it looks like it will run Linux, too:
No gui apparently, but I do nearly all my development work in either a web browser or terminal nowadays.
I had the precursor pixelbook and the containerized linux support was pretty useful. You could shortcut apps installed in the linux container and run them alongside regular chromeOS and android apps.
I ended up just swapping the entire thing over to linux later, though I don't recall if it had support for that at launch.
I'd be interested in seeing reviews or people using it, mainly, but no way in hell would I spend a premium Linux laptop/Macbook Air money on that.
Back when I had my Chromebook ($100, was curious about the ecosystem) I ended up doing the Mr Chromebox thing and run GalliumOS and NixOS on it, if there's no way to make these useful when they go EOL... Yeah I don't see these gaining traction. Just ewaste/landfill material.
Too expensive for Normies, too limited for geeks.
I’m of much the same opinion as you. I’m still very much pissed off at Google for promising that my device would get access to the Play Store and simply never delivering it. Beyond that, simply chrooting the device to install Firefox on early ChromeOS gave massive performance boosts because Chrome was and still is a massive memory hog and doesn’t really make sense for devices of the caliber that they put them on (which can still have as little as 4GB). Which I guess is fine for Googlebooks?
Pretty much everything Google has done since roughly the year 2008 has been to burn any and all of the goodwill they had built with me in the years before, and my trust has long burnt out. That play store thing is probably the thing that did it; they just stayed silent about the issue and the support period has ended so it’s just never going to happen.