Brick and mortar stores -- Apple, Microsoft and Google?

Dell, HP and others now have relatively upscale Chromebooks that approach, and in some features surpass, the high end Google Pixel and Google just announced that Chromebooks will be running Android apps in the future. At first, those apps might not be optimized for the Chromebook form factor, but many will look good in phone or tablet-size windows and I bet we see Chromebook-friendly Android apps in the future.

Given all that, I thought I might like to get one, so I headed over to the closest thing I know of to a Google store -- the Google section of my local Best Buy.

It's a total Fail.

As shown here, all they had was half a dozen low-end machines. That might work for a Chromebook for a school child, but it is not sufficient for someone thinking of spending $700 or more.

But, it gets worse.

There were two, sweet, young sales people wearing Google shirts next to the Chromebooks, so I asked if they had other machines -- perhaps a Pixel -- somewhere else in the store. It turned out they didn't know what I meant by "Google Pixel." I explained what a Google Pixel was and one of them went off to inquire. When she came back, she said they did not have them.

Since I was there, I asked about the six machines they had on display and discovered that they were confused about the difference between memory and storage. None of the machines on display had more than 2GB of memory, but they assured me that that was no problem because you could attach a large external hard drive.

(In the early days of personal computers, there was a joke that the difference between computer store sales people and car sales people was that the car sales folks knew they were lying).

I don't know if these kids were Google or BestBuy employees, but they were wearing Google shirts and that surely cheapens the top-notch "Googler" brand.

If Google hopes to sell and support high-end hardware, they will have to do much better than this, and that will be expensive.

A little while ago, I had been in a shopping mall near my home and dropped in on the Apple and Microsoft stores, which are just a few stores apart.

It was the middle of the week, but the Apple store was quite crowded. Customers were talking with sales people, playing around with machines, getting help from Apple "geniuses," etc. Apple runs classes in the stores, offers walk-in customer support and the employees are knowledgeable and helpful. I snapped this picture just before the man in the foreground told me to stop taking pictures:

I walked over to the Microsoft store and found it to be pretty well empty -- the store employees outnumbered the customers. They had a wide range of computers on display -- from both Microsoft and OEMs. They also offered service and classes and the workers were as knowledgeable and friendly as those in the Apple store. There was no pressure and no problem playing around for as long as I wanted to and they were happy to have me take pictures.

I had visited the same Microsoft and Apple stores two days after Christmas in 2014 and, while both were more crowded post Christmas, the Apple store was totally jam packed and the Microsoft store still fairly empty.

I personally don't see much difference between the Microsoft and Apple stores and can't figure out why one is so much more popular than the other, but, I can tell you for sure that Google will have to be creative and spend a lot of money if they want to sell us high end hardware. They will also have to step up customer support. You can sell a $35 Chromecast in a BestBuy store or online, but not a $1,300 Pixel Chromebook.

My next desktop will be a Chromebase -- a Chrome-based all-in-one -- will yours?

My next desktop will be an LG Chromebase or something similar -- how about you?

A while back, I reviewed an Acer Chromebook, comparing it to my Windows laptop and a tablet. While the laptop remains my main computer, the Chromebook easily beat the tablet for my application mix. (More worrisome for Apple, my 10-year old grandson agreed -- he liked the Chromebook better than his iPad). But, now we have a new entry, the LG Chromebase, an all-in-one desktop running the Chrome OS and browser. How does it stack up against my laptop, tablet and the Chromebook?

Where does the Chromebase fit in?

The bottom like is that my next desktop will be an LG Chromebase or something similar -- like a chromebox with a good keyboard and display. To understand why, check out the following picture of my current desktops -- two old tower PCs running Windows 7 and an iMac.

Kids installing crapware (and playing games)

The towers are used as kid arcade machines and the iMac is used for Web surfing, email, Skype calls, video Hangouts and kid games. That's it. No resource-intensive applications like video editing. (Time Warner's Internet connectivity can get in the way of those video Hangouts, but that is a different rant).

I've not used a Chromebase, but, based on my experience with the Chromebook, I am confident that a Chromebase with 4 Gbytes of memory could handle all of my desktop applications. It would run them as fast as the desktops, boot way faster, be more reliable, and, most important, be locked down. Look back at the picture of that room full of little kids playing games -- how frequently would you guess they click on some bogus link and download some cool-sounding program that turns out to be crapware or worse?

Of course, all this holds for my desktop applications, but it may not for yours. What if there were a good, Chrome-based version of Microsoft Office -- would that do it for you? Still not satisfied? How about the equivalent of an audio editor like Audacity and an image editor like Paint.net? That would not be enough to get me to give up my laptop, but it would be getting close.

Microsoft has released Office for the iPad (too little too late?) and will soon have an Android version. Is a browser-based version be far behind?

In December 2008 Bill Gates wrote a memo warning that "allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company." In January 2010 Steve Jobs predicted that "The world is moving to HTML5." In September, 2012, Mark Zuckerberg said "I think the biggest mistake that we made, as a company, is betting too much on HTML5 as opposed to native ... because it just wasn't there." (Yet).

I think they were all right -- the trick is getting the timing right (like the Mac, not the Lisa) -- LG thinks the time is right about now.

Laptop vs Chromebook vs Tablet

I have played around with an Acer C720 Chromebook on and off for the last two weeks -- trying to see where, if anywhere, it might fit into my digital life.

My primary computer is a laptop, but I use a tablet from time to time, and, the bottom line is that the Chromebook is not ready to replace my laptop, but, it trumps the tablet.

I came to this conclusion by considering my digital applications and the hardware. Let's begin with a look at my applications

Applications

Consuming Web content: I often have fifteen or twenty browser tabs open That is no problem for my laptop, which has 8 GBytes of memory, but, I worried that the C720, with only 4 GBytes of memory might not be up to the task. I did not have to worry -- the C720 surfs as well as my laptop.

Casting tabs: The C720 easily outperformed my laptop in smoothly, quietly (no fan noise) casting video streams to the Chromecast device on my TV set. The Chromebook wins this application hands down since my laptop is unusable for video tab casting. In testing tab casting, I also noticed that its display colors are cooler than the TV set or laptop.

Email: I use the Thunderbird email client for most of my email and my primary account is on my university's Exchange server. I prefer Thunderbird because I am used to it, but Outlook Web App (OWA) runs in a browser and is an excellent client. I could easily give up Thunderbird and use OWA on the Chromebook. I could also access it on the tablet, but want a real keyboard for writing email.

Drafting documents and HTML pages: On my laptop, I usually draft documents (like this post) and edit HTML pages with a text editor and paste them into an application like Blogger or Word. Google Docs or Word Online could replace my text editor. The Chromebook and laptop are about even on this score, with the tablet a distant third, for lack or a keyboard or precision pointing device.

File transfer: Edited HTML pages must be transferred to my server and I have not found a browser-based FTP client with the features I take for granted when using FileZilla on my laptop. If anyone knows of a good one, let me know.

Microsoft Office apps: As a teacher, I create a lot of Powerpoint presentations and frequently need to write a formatted document. Neither Google Docs nor Office Online can match Office. I expect the next big clash between Google and Microsoft to be in the browser, and, if I were in charge at either company, I would put a lot of resources into these applications, but, for now, I'm sticking with my laptop.

Image editing: I have not found a Web-based image editor with the speed and features I need. I do not need a high-end image editor like Photoshop, but do need speed and features like layers, magic wand and other selection modes, effects and adjustments, fat bits, etc. provided by the editor I use, Paint.net. If you know of a tablet or Web-based image editor that can keep up with Paint.net, let me know.

Audio editing: I only work with speech, not music, so don't need a professional editor. I use Audacity to record, capture and edit speech and have not yet found a Web or tablet based equivalent.

Video editing: I use Camtasia Studio for capturing and editing video. It has plenty of features for what I do, but, unlike open source Audacity and Paint.net, it is expensive. I would love to find a "good enough" video editor editor for my laptop or online or on a tablet.

Podcatching I download a lot of podcasts using iTunes and listen to them on a small mp3 player. I've never used a cloud-based podcatcher -- are there some good ones?

Writing programs: I don't do a lot of programming these days, but occasionally fire up Visual Studio for a utility example or in teaching. Microsoft is moving in the direction of a browser-based version of Visual Studio and Google is developing Spark, a browser-based development envirionment, if I were at Microsoft, I'd speed up that effort. For now, I need the laptop for running Visual Studio.

Hardware

As we saw above, the C720 is fast. With 30 browser tabs open, I was able to stream video smoothly and there was no noticeable delay when changing or opening tabs. Checking memory utilization, we see that it nearly all being used:

In spite of that, the Chromebook operating system and swaps between memory and the solid state drive are so fast that I did not notice slowing.

So, the system hardware is fast, but what about the input/output devices?

Screen: The larger, high resolution screen on my laptop allows me to work comfortably with two windows open -- the Chromebook screen is cramped when creating content.

Keyboard: Typing is easier and faster on the laptop, with its larger, deeper keyboard. I don't have a tablet keyboard, but, if I did, I would want one that was full size.

Pointing device: The trackpad on my laptop is smoother and more precise than that of the Chromebook and there is enough physical space for real buttons rather than the virtual buttons on the Chromebook. I like the two and three finger gestures on the Chromebook trackpad, but that is not enough for me to favor it.

Summing it all up

As a content creator, I prefer my laptop because of its input/output devices, but as a content consumer, my laptop cannot compare to the security, simple set-up, battery life, quick charging, instant on/off, size, weight and $250 manufacturer's suggested retail price of the C720. The Chromebook is comparable to a tablet in convenience and simplicity, but is more useful for casual content creation and light editing. If I have one computer, it would be the laptop, but, if I could have two, the second machine would be a Chromebook.

Of course different people have different applications. I let my 11 year old grandson Lucas use the Chromebook for a while then asked him how he liked it and how it compared to his iPad. He said he likes the touch screen of the iPad and missed that on the Chromebook, but he said the Chromebook was better for the "Interweb" and there were more games that he liked. He did not like the feel of the Chromebook touchpad, but liked the keyboard because he could type things like he does with Microsoft Word. The bottom line question -- I asked if he could have only an iPad or the Chromebook, but not both, which would he choose, and he preferred the Chromebook.

My wife reads email, consumes Web content, does Skype calls, takes photos and plays games. She would probably prefer her iPad to the Chromebook. And, geekier folks might get around some of the Chromebook limitations by installing Crouton, which would allow them to run Linux-based applications like Audacity, the audio editor I mentioned above.

How about the future? What about five years from now, when I hopefully have at least 100Mb/s connectivity, a much faster CPU and a Chromebook that runs HTML 6? I suspect that I will be doing more in the browser, and the Chromebook will look better than it does today, but I will still want the form factor and input/output devices of my laptop for content creation. So, I bet I have a laptop and a small Chromebook in five years, but I don't expect to own a tablet. Sorry Apple.

Chromebook + Chromecast = winner

In a recent test, I discoverd that my laptop was not fast enough to cast video from a browser tab to a Chromecast. The audio and video stuttered badly because, as you see here, the CPU was maxed out:

This was not surprising, since my laptop fails to meet Google's recommended specs for tab casting.wiki

But, I posted a query to the Chromecast community on Google Plus asking whether any Chromebooks could cast a video tab. I expected that the (very expensive) Google Pixel, which has an Intel i5 CPU, would be the only one that could, but I was wrong.

James Welbes commented that he was able to cast video tabs using his Samsung 550 Chromebook, which has a dual core Celeron processor. That led commenter Joe Phelps to speculate that "Chrome OS must have very little overhead." That makes a lot of sense -- it does not have to deal with things like overlapping windows and a local file system.

The next generation of Chromebooks has been announced.

I expect that they will all cast tabs well. If that is the case, and one of them has a decent keyboard and screen, I will use it in my den for watching video and in my Chromecast-equipped office for work.

The Pixel was a proof of concept and the new Chromebooks are the first production machines. I will still use laptop and desktop machines, but the Chromebook will get plenty of use.
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Update 11/26/2013

Acer announced a $300 touch screen Chromebook today. (I believe the only other one is the expensive Google Pixel).  This sounds really cool, but it only has 2GB of RAM.  I keep a lot of tabs open so suspect that would be a performance constraint.

Google patents the network OS

Google has been awarded US patent #8,239,662 for "a system for providing an operating system over a network to a local device."

The patent describes the system architecture and goes on to make 3 independent and 15 dependent claims for protection, but how unique are those claims? There have been several "thin client" products and Oracle marketed their Network Computer. Furthermore, is downloading a program that is an operating system conceptually different than downloading a program that is a Web browser or word processor -- where exactly do you draw the line between an operating system and an application program?

I spoke with intellectual property attorney Thomas Ewing of Avancept LLC about those 18 claims and he pointed out that "the number of claims a patent has is only very loosely correlated with its inventiveness." He added that while multiple claims are common in the US, they are less so in other nations and that to infringe upon a dependent claim, one must also infringe upon its corresponding independent claim.

He noted that the patent examiners initially questioned the novelty of several claims in Google's application and it took two rounds of rejection and appeal to finally get the patent, but characterized this as a "fairly typical back and forth with the patent office." He also noted that the patent examiner cited references to prior art in 1 issued patent and 6 published applications (listed below).

Ewing said that to infringe a claim literally, someone would have to do everything listed in the claim. I would think that engineers working on a competing product could find work-arounds that would differentiate their work from Google's. “There is a possibility for arguing infringement under what’s known as ‘the doctrine of equivalents,’” he said, adding that such arguments are often difficult to win.

Ewing also mentioned that it is unusual for someone as senior as David C. Drummond, Google's Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer to sign the power of attorney for a patent application. He acknowledged that that may be standard procedure at Google, but, if is not, it may give us an indication of their commitment to the Chromebook.

With their Motorola acquisition, the Chromebook, Google TV, Nexus tablet and the quickly withdrawn Nexus Q, it looks like Google will end up a hardware manufacturer, heeding Alan Kay's advice that "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware." They may also have noticed Apple's profit margins.

If you would like to really geek out on this patent, you can see all of the accompanying documentation by requesting information on patent number 8,239,662 at the Patent Office portal. I did so, and was impressed (and depressed) by the effort needed to secure the patent -- there are records of 46 transactions, 69 documents on file, 63 adjustments (some minor) made during the application process and contact information for 82 attorneys and agents (though only two attorneys actually filed the documents in the case).

Whether it is eventually upheld or not, this patent gives Google and its lawyers a weapon to use in the sad court fights that are so characteristic of today's computing scene.


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Prior art referenced by the patent examiner:

Patent:

• 7,343,560 - Method and system for generating dynamic images - owned by Novell

Applications:

• 20030126242 - Network boot system and method using remotely-stored, client-specific boot images created from shared, base snapshot image - owned by Compaq/HP
• 20040153694 - Reliability of diskless network-bootable computers using non-volatile memory cache - owned by Microsoft
• 20050091349 - Automatically configuring a computer - owned by SAP
• 20060010314 - Methods and systems for running multiple operating systems in a single mobile device - owned by Intellectual Ventures
• 20060047946 - Distributed operating system management - owned by MaxSP Corp.
• 20090083404 - Software Deployment In Large-Scale Networked Systems - owned by Microsoft