One of my dreams has always been to have all my documents, all my applications, all my everything available to me wherever I am. While this traditionally meant to me that I could start a beefed-up VNC session on my iPhone to connect to my home PC and check my email, listen to music, even watch hi-definition video, all by streaming the data, this would involve a major leap in the bandwidth of not only home broadband connections, but also the coverage and bandwidth of cellular data networks. A pretty large order if I do say so myself. Then I got to thinking.
While the idea of an online OS isn’t exactly a new one, we’re reaching a point that most of our data, communications, entertainment, etc. can be done online - and even sometimes with a better user experience. Facebook’s acquisition of Parakey may be a clue that they are headed in that very direction. But wait. Aren’t there already web OS’s available? There sure are. I took YouOS (currently in alpha) and Glide (currently in beta) for a test drive to see how they handled.
While I would argue that the Glide experience was a much more polished and visually appealing one, its reliance on a flash-based backend seemed to weaken it in my mind. Whereas the YouOS is more AJAX oriented, potentially opening it up for user-created applications or modules in the future. However, neither of these early-stage examples really impressed me.
I find web applications like Flickr or YouTube to be generally much more enjoyable to use than either YouOS or Glide. I think that this comes in large part because when a developer decides to create an application like YouTube, they can really focus on doing one thing and doing it well. While I’m very impressed with both of these applications (I don’t think they deserve the term ‘OS’… yet ), they do leave a lot to be desired.
What I would like to see is basically a mashup OS. Whether it be from Facebook, Google, or any other intrepid developer out there. That way users can add applications as API’s become available. Imagine: Flickr for photos, YouTube for videos, Google Docs as your office suite, and Amazon S3 storage to hold all your files - all in one integrated environment. When you think of the number of web 2.0 services currently out there (and more coming every day), the possibilities are nearly endless.
The bottom line: I actually don’t think that we’re ready for a web OS, as much as it excites me. While I think we’re progressing rapidly in the right direction, it’s going to be hard for me to give up some of my most-used applications like iTunes and Photoshop, not to mention the fact that I can’t even count the number of times in any given month I find myself out and about with my laptop without acceptable connectivity. Either way, I think the development is absolutely commendable, and who knows, maybe someone smarter than I will be able to work out the kinks and get it just right.
