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Two more tablet-friendly features on their way to Google Chrome
Developers keep plugging ahead, however, and continue to work on tablet-friendly features. Two code revisions have landed in the past couple days which will definitely make Chrome more at home on tablets. The first is device orientation support (think auto-rotating content on your Chrome OS tablet and accelerometer-enabled games) and the other is speech input (hello, voice commands!).
Both features have been part of the Chromium code for a while now, but they're now enabled by default and it's typically a very short amount of time between a new Chromium feature being defaulted and its arrival in the official Google Chrome builds. It's also worth noting that voice input support is only on by default for Chromium's Windows users -- Mac and Linux users would need to add the --enable-speech-input switch to their shortcut for the time being.
Developer Jeremy Selier has posted a simple-yet-cool demo video of device orientation using his Macbook Pro -- check it out after the break!
Device orientation demo from Jeremy Selier on Vimeo.
Comments
4
Subscribe to commentskojo87Aug 28th 2010 2:52PM
it doesn't really make sense to me why Google would want Chrome OS and Android on tablets. wouldn't it make more sense to only push one as the OS for tablets?
earlsAug 28th 2010 3:54PM
It's my belief that at some point ChromeOS will supersede Android.
I have heard that Google intention was to merged the two projects at some unknown point in the future. Perhaps the the high-level OS aspects (the UI) will be merged with the Android low-level system core. Both are interpretations of Linux, from what I understand.
ChromeOS hardware support is lacking, and the Android browser is definitely lacking. I'm still boggled there is no Chrome for Android.
earlsAug 28th 2010 3:54PM
I know it's just a stop gap, and not really designed for tablets, but Google has already made a nice on-screen keyboard extension for Chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/mpphfcjpaldmedbbomcdhgonmhjngfig
It's odd, I thought I remembered "Google" saying that Tablets/Touchscreen were not going to be an initial focus for ChromeOS.
Everyone keeps harping "netbooks, netbooks, netbooks" but I see ChromeOS as a great enterprise thin client solution. It's my intention - once I'm self-sufficent on ChromeOS myself - to deploy it at my business.
Still some serious hurdles to overcome first.
VictorAug 29th 2010 5:45PM
Exactly. I think ChromeOS will launch on netbook like devices and thinclients. It seems to be an OS much better suited for a keyboard and mouse. Eventually I can see the project being merged with Android since Android is much better suited for tablets.