I just read a very interesting article on OS News about the potential for Safari to be the next IE6.  The author is exploring a future where Apple deliberately holds back on giving Safari certain features, especially on mobile phones and tablets.  Give it a read:

 http://www.osnews.com/story/23378/Will_Apple_Embrace_the_Web_No_

The argument is essentially that the web, being a platform that by its nature encourages platform independence, is a problem for Apple (and for Microsoft too).  Apple’s business model revolves around selling hardware and content, and it does this by making iTunes an exclusive hub.  All applications, music, videos and books that you want as a user has to come through it.  If the browser was allowed to become so fast and so integrated with the native operating system that you could do everything with a great user experience that native apps can do, then suddenly Apple’s content kingdom falls apart.  It’s not difficult to see the truth in this argument, and the implications it has.

I think we’re fortunate to have so much competition in the mobile space at the moment such that Apple can’t easily have an iPhone / iTunes monopoly – if that happened then yeah, Safari probably would be the next IE6 and we’d all be held hostage to the iTunes ecosystem.

The great thing about Google is that its business model ensures that it will continue to push the web as a platform.  With the Chrome browser, Google is pushing javascript to its speed limits (http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2010/05/chrome-5-aces-browser-benchmarks.html), so much so that it makes IE8 look like an elephant with concrete feet, and thanks to Firefox, Google and Apple, HTML5 and CSS3 are improving the presentation layer radically.  

It’s now the “hooks” into the underlying native OS that future web browsers need (like access to the cameras, motion tracking, 3D graphics acceleration libraries, contacts/phone/sms, etc) to enable the next generation of web applications.  Frameworks like PhoneGap are solving this to some extent and we will no doubt see Google give us the kitchen sink with Chrome and Android.   But will we see Microsoft and Apple step up to the plate on the iPhone or Windows Phone 7?  I tend to doubt it.

Google's recent announcement that it was developing its own operating system (OS) based on Linux has been received with mixed reviews. According to Google, the OS will focus on speed, simplicity and security and will initially be targeted at netbooks, with its primary objective of allowing users to run a browser to access their online services. Importantly, it will be free to end users and be released as open source, allowing anyone to contribute to the project.

Critics of the announcement claim that Google is fragmenting the already saturated OS market, and that it should have partnered with one of the existing Linux OS vendors such as Ubuntu. The argument is largely based around not reinventing the wheel, and ensuring stability for the Linux OS camp, in order for it to compete more successfully against the likes of Microsoft.

However, others have been praising Google's strategy as innovative and game changing. All other significant OS's (Windows, OS X and Linux) have a windowing systems allowing the user to install and run applications locally on the machine (just as the way the Rype Desktop works). ChromeOS will allow a browser and not much else to run locally, users will then access their applications online. This is significant as it drives users to further utilise online applications and services, you probably already do email, social networking and banking online; ChromeOS will drive users to accept that most if not all services can be accessed at any time on any device.

Here at Rype we feel that the storing your personal and business information online is the way of the future, Google's announcement of a slimmed down OS to support this model is further confirmation of the increased availability and security that cloud computing offers. Right now, however, we feel that the browser does not offer a rich enough user experience for some applications, which is why the Rype Desktop is an application that you run locally that accesses your information stored on our secure servers.

Ultimately, Google's announcement has already and will continue to raise awareness of the benefits of cloud computing, the future looks exiting!