Google have hinted a possible ‘convergence’ between their web-based ChromeOS and mobile operating system Android.
The suggestion of combining the two systems to work as one unified OS comes from the mouth of Sundar Pichai, the Senior Vice President of Chrome and Apps at Google.
Speaking at this years AllThingsD conference, Pichai was asked how he saw the future of Google’s two operating systems existing in the future. He said: –
“Android is extremely successful, we couldn’t be more proud of it. We have exciting steps ahead with tablets, too. There are many instances where people spend all of their time in the browser.
The notion that, for the first time, your experience is in the cloud. You still run on a local device, CPU, SSD, etc. – but the notion that your computer is actually in the cloud enables zero administration. And from a web console, you can deploy and manage apps. There’s no installing software or anything like that.”
Continuing (emphasis mine):
I think what is important between Android and Chrome OS with users, is that it makes sense. Look at Apple, there’s MacBooks and iPhone, and they use different operating systems. Convergence will happen, sure. But look at Gmail – you go from a Chromebook to Android, and it just works.”
Does it make sense?
Reading between the lines of Picahi’s words I get the notion that the ‘convergence’ is less about ‘one OS to rule them all’ and more about making your ‘Chrome’ life – be it Chrome browser on the desktop, Android or ChromeOS, ‘unified’ as one.
With Chrome set to the be default browser on Jelly Bean – the next iteration of the popular Android OS – Android users will gain instant access to the bookmarks, password data and, potentially, web app shortcuts they created on their desktops or Chromebooks on their mobile devices.
But maybe the ‘convergence’ Pichai speaks of will work the other way too.
Perhaps Chrome on Android will open up the way for syncing of Android data (address book, message history, photos, etc) with your Google Chrome?
Maybe, like many third-party apps offer, notifications could be pushed from your Android device to Chrome, letting you respond or act on them within Chrome. We already known that ChromeOS is getting an SMS notification feature.
However it happens the chances are that it’s going to be good.
Via Slashgear