Google is giving Chrome OS a makeover, revamping its browser-based OS look a lot more like classic desktop operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X.
On Monday, as it does every six weeks, the company released a new test version of the OS, and this includes a new user interface called Aura. As it stands, Chrome OS behaves very much like a single browser window. But with Aura, you can open multiple, overlapping windows as you would on a classic desktop OS.
“Our vision with Chrome OS is to provide a user experience that gets better every 6 weeks,” a Google spokesman tells Wired. “One of the areas we’ve thought a lot about is the desktop and windows manager environment, and creating a simpler, more intuitive experience for our users.”
With Chrome OS, the browser was essentially the only local application. All other apps and data sat into the browser. Google first released the operating system in May of last year, offering it on “Chromebook” laptops manufactured by Acer and Samsung. The laptops were originally envisioned as consumer devices, but at some point before their release, Google decided they should be sold to corporations as well. Because the OS is contained in a browser, Google says, it’s more secure than traditional OSes, and it can be updated over the wire. For those two reasons, the company believes its ideal for businesses.
“There’s not a whole lot to manage, the operating system is so lightweight,” Zeus Kerravala, a senior vice president at market research outfit the Yankee Group and a Chromebook user, told us last year. “You don’t have to deal with Windows service packs, which is like installing a new OS. You don’t have to deal with security patches. And with everything stored in the cloud, you don’t have to worry about backup.”
But the laptops are limited — and, at about $450 a pop, relatively expensive. Google has not released official sales figures for the devices.
In addition to offering adjustable, overlapping Windows, the new Chrome OS alpha also offers a taskbar and an app launcher are reminiscent of Windows Taskbar and Apple’s LauchPad, judging from screenshots posted to the net. Under the hood, Google says, it has also improved Chrome’s media players, and it has added a recovery tool for rebuilding the OS when it’s damaged.
The Chromebooks manufactured by Acer and Samsung are they only models that can run the new release. Prior to the release of these notebooks, Google offered a beta laptop known as the Cr-48, and this will not the new alpha. But Google engineer Orit Mazor said that the company is not killing support for the Cr-48. She said that Google that Chrome OS version 19 is skipping Cr-48 “due to platform considerations” and that the company would bring the laptop 48 “back onto the release train” after the version 19.
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