Ian McGurren looks at the future of Google's oddball operating system
Chrome OS – it's the operating system that's not quite an operating system in the traditional sense, but which has found favour with those who need a light OS for simple, fuss-free, safe computing. Could its time be coming to an end, though? Is Google going cut its OS portfolio by one?
Chrome OS is a bit of a strange operating system. Although it's based on Linux, it has more in common with mobile operating systems than the traditional behemoth operating systems – working with apps, restricting access to the filesystem and so on. Initially, Chrome OS was little more than its browser namesake, Google's Chrome browser, loaded into a PC. It was this barebones approach that was both its appeal and its downside. If you wanted a machine that could get you on the web and not have to worry about viruses and such, Chrome OS offered this but nothing else. Great if you want to just browse the web or undertake some basic tasks such as Google's productivity apps, but kind of limited beyond that. It's for this reason, however, that Chromebooks have found favour in places of education. Easy to use, little administration needed and the likelihood of problems in use are small.
Chrome OS itself can run on different machines, though you'll need to compile it from the open source Chromium OS version before you can install it. Even this is with mixed results, so really if you want to try Chrome OS, you can do it the 'cheap' way (restricting yourself to doing everything in the Chrome browser will give a fair indication of what to expect) or the 'proper' way, and buy a Chromebook or Chromebox. These are the devices released by big name manufacturers such as Dell, Samsung and Acer that run Chrome OS out of the box. The Chromebooks are cute little laptops in the Macbook Air vein, but for a far smaller outlay (most Chromebooks are around £200 or less). Not all were cheap and cheerful, though, as Google's Pixel Chromebook showed. Taking the Chromebook to its very limits of class, the Pixel has design and hardware to give the Macbook Pro Retina a run for its money, or at least it would have done had it not ran Chrome OS. For the money (well in excess of £1,000), the Pixel seemed a very strange beast. You'd need to really, really love Chrome OS to warrant that kind of purchase.
The Pixel gained a revision in 2015, but things changed with the announcement of the Google Pixel C. What created waves was this Pixel, although pitched as a productivity device, runs Android 6.0, not Chrome OS. Google hasn't so blatantly pitched its ostensibly mobile OS to the desktop before, mainly as it was the preserve of Chrome OS, so this was seen as a sea change. Later, Alphabet's Eric Schmidt spoke of folding Chrome OS into Android. On the face of it, this was in line with what Google had always said about the merging of Chrome OS and Android, but here the inference was closer to Android becoming dominant, instead of something more of an equal combination.
For now, Google remains publicly committed to Chrome OS. Chrome the browser is still one of the most popular on the planet, and there are still Chromebooks being released. But while it has had a good run, the nature of desktop computing is undoubtably changing. Proof of device convergence, such as Microsoft's Continuum for Windows Phone, show that there don't need to be separate devices for the hand and the desk or even for the wall. This subtle change seems to acknowledge that Android may be better placed to be Google's OS for the phone, the tablet, the TV and now the desktop, that Chrome OS may ever be.