If this actually works without any roadblock like catches, I wonder if Apple will start modifying the iPad to make chromeOS (or any other OS for that matter) can't run on it. I don't know if there's anything you can do from a Hardware perspective to stop someone from installing a different OS, but the cat and mouse game will be fun to watch nevertheless.
I doubt it. Apple seems to understand the futility of the cat & mouse game. Even with the Hackintosh community that is not buying an Apple computer and probably pirating OSX they haven't added any additional road blocks since the first public x86 OSX Tiger build from 2005. Even with jailbreaking they haven't taken a very aggressive stance besides fixing exploits.
* Flash (I browsed the Bowmore whiskey site on my iPad last night... I still hit this occasionally - http://www.bowmore.co.uk/ )
* The chance of getting some native Google apps from the Chrome appstore
* Perhaps a chance to break the dependence on iTunes for updates (just give me OTA already and don't require a link to a computer)
* Chrome Sync so your tabs, passwords, bookmarks go with you
Hell, I'd want it for most of the above. Though I'm growing dependent on the Twitter app for iPad (thankfully the site is catching up fast) and also Flip Board (which doesn't yet have a HTML5 version or Chrome version.
"What are the default username/passwords for this build?
Default username is facepunch, default password is facepunch."
It's multi-user.
You can share the iPad with others in your household and instead of being a social device in the shared nature, you can opt to return it to being a user device that many people can have their own account on.
The essence of this is that unlike the Kindle or iPad, you could access whatever you want, download whatever you want, safe in the knowledge that the next user of the device wouldn't see it.
Meaning you could share the iPad with other members of the house, and each member could have their own login with their own preferences, their own bookmarks, plugins, history, saved passwords, etc.
i guess Apple will somehow port that feature out into the iPad sometime into the future... Pretty sure Jobs did not see the iPad becoming a family shared pc substitute household device...
OTA sync? Wireless is still not fast enough for that. And what's the point if you still need to be in your house? 3G networks are definitely not fast enough, which leaves USB sync.
Chromium OS is fully open source. Chrome OS is the closed, Google-compiled version that will arrive on physical machines. As far as I know, iOS is fully closed-source.
Right, but by the same token, why swap Mac OS for iOS?
It's a further step towards utter simplicity - a device you can pick up and use purely for browsing the internet with no other complications.
If it wasn't (most likely) hacky and unstable, I'm sure my mum would dig it.
We will have to see how much of a draw the Chrome web app store is when its ready. App availability will be a deciding factor, although google will have lots of work to do to get even with Apple.
Looking forward to seeing more details on this... I'm guessing an ARM build of Chromium OS' userspace components[1], ported to run on iOS' Darwin kernel?
If that's the case, I'm guessing there could be a Chromium OS "App" for "normal" jailbroken iPads (running in a chroot jail or similar.)
As I see it, the alternative way would be a working port of Linux to Apple's A4 SoC, but AFAIK that doesn't exist. :(
