Chrome OS is not more multitasking than the iPad
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 8:52 tagged Apple, android, chrome os, google, ipad, iphone in Computers I am starting to wonder if people have no clue or if I am just clueless and I seriously do not want to believe that. The thing is that everybody is complaining that Apple's iPad is not doing multitasking. Fine by me. Most things do not really need multitasking though and if the modal screens for push messages is improved you can stay online in your skype account or do other things. Sure it would be nice to be able to move a video to a small screen and continue browsing the web, but we will survive.
What drives me nuts though is people starting to speculate that Chrome OS will kill the iPad because it has multitasking or doesn't have flash? What?
First the multitasking. Yes, Android does multitasking, but Chrome OS is a browser and you can do multiple tabs, but that is not multitasking and something the iPad can do just fine. So this is really a non-point. Chrome OS is first still in development and second focussed on all being in a browser and hence not multitasking as such.
As for flash, yes some sites will not run but Youtube is already working as they are making special iPhone versions of videos and many others will try to incorporate HTML5. Just check out the SublimeVideo Player to see what is possible. Amazing stuff.
Oh and one thing for everyone: Not everyone has to or will buy an iPad and it is not the end-all device and not built as such. I actually chose a Mac because I wanted it to work after hacking around in servers and linux and windows boxes for ages. The iPad is just taking it one step further. Talk to people who have an iPhone. Most of them stopped hacking them because it is fine as it is or you move to e.g. Android. And Android is multitasking.
Reader Comments (3)
There is multi-tasking in chrome. It's visible in different ways: pages in other tabs update in background, extensions like twitter clients or gmail checker...
ok, good point, that might be something that could be called multitasking. But it is not something that cannot be easily solved by Apple if they wanted to and/or can work with the Notifications System. And loading pages in the background isn't really that relevant for most people.
The real multitaking would be two browser windows besides each other or better yet, one Browser Windows and one EMail Window ... wait, that would both be browser. Never mind ;)
Is "true" multitasking actually that important for the average user. I can't count the amount of times i have seen "average" iphone users who don't even use apps that are not default. The same will be true for the majority of ipad users - they just want to go on the internet check email and maybe watch a video or play the odd game. No offence but multitaksing is for geeks - and geeks get androids...
Danny - www.iPad Case Review.org