Experiment: Seven Days In The Browser

By Aaron Ting

I embarked on an experiment recently to see whether I could make it a full week using only the web browser on my PC. To be clear, I promised you readers that I would not use any locally-installed applications. The advent of full browser-based computing with efforts like Google's Chrome OS raises an important question: Does the internet offer web-based solutions to every task I perform on my computer?

The answer: Not yet, but we're close.

Music
Ditching iTunes was a pleasure. To be clear, I pretty much hate iTunes. It's a bloated and frustrating experience, like having to store your music inside the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

I usually mix it up with Windows Media Player, Zune Player, and VLC. For the past week, I abandoned all of those programs and dusted off my Pandora and Last.fm accounts. Both are extremely versatile, but I started getting tired of 'recommended' music; for the record, Taylor Swift should not be played on my Train station. Also, I dislike commercials - even if they're implemented sparingly.

I also checked out Grooveshark, an interesting Pandora alternative which allows you to save and retrieve songs in a traditional playlist. I played with SoundCloud for a bit, which is an awesome platform for discovering a lot of independent music.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't find a decent cloud-based service that provides on-demand music. Spotify needs to come to the U.S., because until I can pick the actual songs I want to listen to, Pandora and Last.fm will only be an alternative to playing stuff out of my own music library - not a replacement. They're great for discovering new music, but aren't well suited to my musical ADHD. I'd like to see a web service that allows me to upload and play my personal music library from the cloud. I hear HP might do something like this.

Productivity

In my last piece, I was pretty honest about my fear of having to use Google Docs. I've had bad experiences with it in the past, but I decided to give it another shot. I have to admit, Google Docs has improved a ton since I last checked it out. I liked the ease of having my documents made easily accessible on the cloud without having to use a middle-man solution like Dropbox. Unfortunately, Docs still lacks a lot of richness that the standard Office suite provides. A lot of extras are available like footnotes, tables, and paragraph alignment, but none of them felt as precise or customizable as your typical Microsoft Word program. Similarly, creating detailed presentations and spreadsheets with Google Docs is totally plausible - but it just never felt preferable.

I also checked Microsoft's Office Web Apps - a suite of very simplified Office programs that run in the browser. Two major problems:

First, Microsoft blocks you from trying to use these web apps unless you're running Internet Explorer. This was ridiculously frustrating as I almost never use Internet Explorer. This was an incredibly incompetent implementation choice on Microsoft's part, and they need to resolve it if they want to become a serious player in the the web-based productivity war. If Office is available for Macs, then its web-Office should damn well be available to Chrome users.

Second, this web-based version of Word is pretty limited. It's like using Microsoft Office 95 - it just doesn't have enough rich functionality, which is unfortunate because that's really the best thing going for Microsoft's standard Office suite. I didn't get a chance to try out the beta of Microsoft's upcoming cloud-based Office 365 suite, which will replace their Web Apps to compete more closely with Google Docs.

Communications, etc.
Google Voice is great. Video chat quality was excellent, and making free calls and sending free text messages was spectacular. In fact, I really prefer it to Skype, but I'm going to continue using Skype until Google Voice becomes mass-adopted. Put simply, Voice isn't fun if you don't have as many people to talk to.

I really hate the clunky/buggy feel of Facebook's built-in chat and prefer using a separate IM client for chatting with Facebook friends. To replace my local instant messaging clients, I used Meebo. It's a decent browser solution for doing IM with Facebook and AIM contacts. Likewise, I ditched Google's locally-installed Talk client and just used Gmail for IMing my Google friends. I'm still not sold on browser-based IM. Meebo was pretty decent, but Facebook's built-in chat tool is so terrible and buggy. It really shouldn't be that hard to implement something better. Seriously, Facebook's own site shouldn't be offering the worst Facebook Chat experience on the internet.

I used a few other web services like Scripped and Adobe's browser-based Photoshop tool. In general, I was pretty impressed. I'm still looking for a good browser-based video editing tool.

Verdict
Sorry, Google fanboys, but I don't think the internet is rich enough yet to support exclusively-browser-based computing. There's a ton of stuff you can do in a browser these days, but I don't think we're at the point where you'd prefer to do a lot of this stuff on the web. Services like Picnik and Google Docs show that we're definitely headed in that direction. Running programs through the browser should be happening, because there are a ton of benefits. The consumer can gain a lot in regard to ease-of-access, software costs, and performance. Being able to edit heavier media like photos and sound files without having to leverage any of my own laptop's resources is fantastic - I really wish we could see more browser-based video editors to give Final Cut and Premiere a run for their money.

But until these offerings mature and provide benefits which eclipse the functional richness and high performance of locally-installed programs, we'll be stuck using Windows and Mac OS for a while.

Thoughts on Google TV

The prospect of a TV-connected computer in every living room is a frequent obsession in the technology industry. It's been attempted countless times. Microsoft allegedly started the great Xbox experiment in order to prevent Sony's Playstation line from taking over the living room PC experience. Tivo, Roku boxes, and high-end media streamers have been available for years, but all have failed to achieve mass-market adoption. Apple tried a new approach recently with its new aggressively-priced $99 Apple TV, a simple media streamer with access to on-demand television and movie rentals. But even Apple remains skeptical of its adoption, referring to it as a "hobbyist" device.

Google TV represents a pretty ambitious leap forward. The idea is simple: create a TV-optimized operating system with online connectivity and have all the electronics manufacturers design new TVs or external boxes to support this new OS. It's a dream that Microsoft has been attempting for over a decade, and when it comes to mass-adoption, Google may beat them to it.

Taking what they learned from Android, Google created an open-source software platform for television. The possibilities are endless; take all the limitless functionality of a smartphone, and multiply it times the size of your 46" Sony Bravia. Imagine televisions with built-in app functionality. No need to pump Netflix or Hulu through your PS3 - just download the apps directly to your TV. Imagine turning your TV into a live-time CNN news ticker or conducting a four-way video chat from your living room - these are some of the things that become possible. A slick, web-browsing PC running on the largest display in your house. 

But Google TV's often-overlooked potential is in its potential as an integrated gaming platform. Just as the iPhone and iPod Touch are on a war path to obliterate Nintendo and Sony gaming handhelds, Google TV has the potential to replace your Wii or Xbox. While the graphics capabilities of a Google TV box would be initially underwhelming to a current 360 owner, the convenience of downloading games inexpensively and quickly instead of having to go buy them for $50 from obnoxious Gamestop employees is an advantage that deserves the serious attention of Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. If Google succeeds and everyone has a cheap box or new TV running the Google TV platform, some families may choose to divest from dedicated gaming consoles - particularly since Google TV will support Bluetooth standards, which would enable a variety of different game controller options. 

There is, however, a major flaw in Google's strategy. Having new televisions come with Google TV built-in is a smart move, but most consumers would likely have to purchase an external box to experience Google TV. This is problematic, since external boxes have typically failed, and companies like Logitech and Sony aren't helping by announcing box prices of $400 or more. Moreover, if Android OS on phones is any indication, Google needs to be extremely wary of how much it freedom it gives to electronics manufacturers. If Google doesn't set proper compatibility guidelines and every manufacturer makes highly-customized versions of the Google TV software, we could see a massive splintering effect occur, similar to what is currently happening with Android phones. Essentially, an uninformed consumer could potentially buy a box that is unable to install future Google TV updates.

Bottom line, the 'smart TV' is coming. Whether it's Google TV, a future Apple TV, or some Windows-packing behemoth, expect this battle to be drawn out and full of fart-sound apps.