Chrome OS is all about the web

Google Chrome OS screenshots.Google had its official Chrome OS reveal today, finally giving us some screenshots and a whole lot of Q&A to dig through over the coming weeks. YouTube is flooded with new footage of the OS in action, so I’ll leave you to watch it while I cover the more general details here.

First and foremost, Chrome OS is about speed. “We want Google Chrome OS to be blazingly fast,” said Sundar Pichai, Google’s VP of product management. It should be so fast that it will be able “to boot up like a TV,” according to Pichai. If you’re trying to figure out whether or not your TV has a boot time, just think of the time it takes for the screen to warm up to fully vibrant color. That’s how quickly Chrome will go from pressing the power button to ready to check email. About 7 seconds. Now that’s fast.

Most of that speed comes from the shift to web applications from traditional local applications. Everything in Chrome OS will be managed on the web, even Photoshop-like functionality (though that will come at a later date). For consumers it means no more software updates or hardware backups. The first will be nice, but I’m sure people will have trouble getting used to trusting their data to Google (let’s just avoid the discussion of how that’s already the case, shall we?).

A lot of people wondered why Google would need two operating systems. The company says that Chrome OS is all about the web, while Android is more app-oriented. Chrome, much to my surprise, won’t support any Android apps. Pichai and Sergei Brin were pretty clear about the intentions for Chrome – that it’s all web, all the time – and that it won’t share in Android’s Marketplace.

Check the gallery at Gizmodo for some official screenshots.

  

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