#FF00AA

I’m not sure what to think. I’ve always assumed that the development had to be somewhat advanced if they were suddenly announcing it — unlike many people who accused it of being vaporware — but the bits around the browser window scare me: they look ugly and temporary (a minimal, vestigial system tray? why the hell would you want that?) but the worst part is that Google is perfectly capable of releasing an OS that looks like this.

What I find really interesting, though (and unless you’ve always thought it would work that way, which I hadn’t, I’d say the cleverness makes it unlikely that it would be a fake) is the way tabs are roaming free on the desktop. Meaning, essentially, that there is no such thing as “tabs” anymore: each page is in its own window (and process, as we all know), and it just so happens that windows can be docked together. That looks like a great interface for geeks and regular users alike. (I had stupidly imagined that all pages would display in a full-screen window with tabs on top — but that’s unworkable on today’s web, as there still are legit uses for popups.)

You’ve got to wonder: had they planned this from the start? Is that why Chrome looks so different from every other browser, with its tabs on top and embedded blue background? Did they always intend for Chrome to be perceived as a little slice of Chrome OS on your desktop?

I’m not sure that Google itself did, but I’d bet the Chrome devs had it in mind.