Monday, April 16, 2018

Second ChromeOS tablet

Following Acer's announcement of the first ChromeOS tablet, HP followed with their version called Chromebook X2.  I've always believed that Chromebook makes for excellent laptops for the vast majority of use cases and ChromeOS might actually be a better OS for tablets rather then Android.  Of course now that ChromeOS can run Android apps I feel that's more true then ever.

I like that the Chromebook X2 can detach the keyboard versus what the Pixelbook does, although likely for my next tablet, I'm more likely to go with the Acer simply because I don't need the keyboard and the Acer is cheaper because of it.

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Looking forward to ChromeOS tablets

When it comes to Android vs iOS, I'm firmly in the Android camp.  Just like iOS, Android is used to power both phones and tablets, but I believe that ChromeOS might be a better OS for tablets which is why I'm very excited by Acer's announcement of the first ChromeOS tablet.  Even though Google touts Chromebook tablets as ideal for education, it's really ideal for general use of tablets.

Chrome has become a powerful platform for developing web applications and ChromeOS' performance, stability and security is perfect for a device that is used much longer then phone.  With the emergence of web assembly, I can see developers being more effective writing web applications and directing tablet users to those same applications as desktop users.

For me personally, I spent most of my time on the tablet using the Chrome browser.  Many of the Android app that I use are basically just the web application wrapped into an Android app, but for those time that only a native Android app is available ChromeOS can now run Android apps alongside web apps.

I think my next tablet might very well be a ChromeOS tablet and I hope to see ChromeOS replace Android in this space.  I also hope to see developers move towards web assembly and build more powerful web apps using languages such as Go (web assembly currently being worked on).