[Not] Gone Google Crazy

I’ve already established that I have a certain weakness for toys, and a certain Google Toy found its way into my hands recently. That experience was pleasant, and I gave the device nearly two weeks. Push Gmail was nice, and I am a fan of the full keyboard in the device. I firmly believe that device inertia takes at minimum a week for us to allow new devices into our lives. However, it was ultimately the “Apps” available for my iPhone that drew me back to it at the end of the forced two week testing period. I still think it will be a fun device to play with as time goes on, but it isn’t something I’m excited about using.

Which, is really one of the reasons that I don’t jump out of my chair for a Sony Ericsson version of the device. The set of APIs currently available for the device, quite simply are to the level that Apple offers to iPhone developers. (In/De)spite the fact that developers must learn Cocoa to develop for the iPhone, they flock to it in droves, which is an impressive feat. The best Android Apps are those that I wish my iPhone had, but Apple has refused to open APIs for yet (*cough* *cough* power management *cough* *cough*). But the easy ability to create compelling user interfaces and applications that ultimately leverage what the iPhone is and is not are what makes it go.

So, now I find myself intrigued by Google’s Chrome OS, which again is an interesting idea. If anyone could truly bring Linux to the mainstream, it would be Google. But then again, I have to ask the question, “what about the apps?” Is it all in the cloud? Isn’t there something to be gained from applications built specifically for these devices? Web-Apps on the iPhone were a pain in the butt and ultimately it was the opening of the SDK that brought the revolution. Its the same reason I haven’t converted to their Chrome browser… None of my Firefox Add-ons exist there.

Ultimately though, the development environment remains Linux, which having actually spent a great deal of time working with and around Linux, is not my favorite world to develop applications in. Certainly compared with Visual Studio and XCode, there is a great developer divide that will eventually have to be crossed for Chrome OS to really break into the mainstream. Consider how quickly all those netbooks went from Linux to XP…