
The Curious Case Of The Chromebook: Is It Really A Hit? - kirtijthorat
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/12/31/the-curious-case-of-the-chromebook-is-it-really-a-hit/
======
kumarm
I Bought 2 Chrome books.

1 for my daughter. Only purpose she can use is Gmail (email and keep in touch
with Aunt's and other relatives overseas). Occasionally she uses youtube and
her school website.

1 for My Dad to read new papers online.

Both of them love it and its the only computer they use. I am sure none of
them show up in any stats.

Edit: I must add Why I bought Chromebooks for both of them. Their uses cases:

1\. Only activity is online. No use with offline computer.

2\. Not Tech savvy enough to deal with AntiVirus.

3\. Limited Use and hence need cheaper option.

Chromebook fits perfectly in both scenario's.

~~~
pkulak
I've been slowly replacing every machine that I'm responsible for supporting
(family members who ask me which computer to buy, and to please set it up)
with a ChromeOS computer. Usually it's just a case of buying the new laptop
and logging them in. Last week I found a used Chromebox for my dad to replace
his WinXP desktop. It went well, but I did get bitten. I didn't know he even
had a printer, and since you can't plug a printer directly into ChromeOS, we
had to buy a new, networked one (which does work amazingly well, btw). I also
had to _write_ two Chrome Packaged Apps (fun learning experience, haha) to
replace the WinXP camera import wizard he was using and his photo slideshow
screensaver.

Despite all that, I'm still happy with the decision. It's a super simple
machine that's fast as hell, updates without him even knowing, and is
incredibly secure. And the dev APIs are getting reasonably complete pretty
quickly, such that I was able to write a little app to import photos off a
camera in just a couple days.

~~~
agumonkey
If I knew how to make ChromeOs talk to my wifi printer (Lexmark s605, which
does not seem to support CloudPrint) I'd free my mom from the "burden" that is
her Acer AspireOne (too cramped, too slow) right now.

~~~
VLM
Perhaps I can help you with this.

"Install Google Cloud Print on a Linux server"

this is headless mode, BTW.

[https://support.google.com/a/answer/2906017?hl=en](https://support.google.com/a/answer/2906017?hl=en)

I have a substantial server infrastructure at home, although reports all over
the net indicate a rasp-pi is more than good enough to be a mere print server.

If the chromebook I wanted wasn't hopelessly sold out due to christmas demand,
my wife would probably be using one right now.

~~~
agumonkey
Oh so the rpi will bridge cloudprint and printer through normal linux drivers
?

~~~
VLM
That would be the plan. I was motivated enough to google for you and that
particular printer "just worked out of the box" no fooling around for one guy,
on one version of Ubuntu, so I would not be overly surprised if it also just
worked on the rpi. I have never fooled around with printing on a rpi although
I have one, due to lack of need to print.

My personal plan would revolve around installing that software on an existing
server which already talks perfectly well to an older model Brother laser
printer. So the server to printer link is done, working, rock solid, no
problem, I'd only have to debug the headless cloud print interface. Which I've
been meaning to do for some time, but I've been busy and unmotivated to set
that up.

My plan was foiled by the chromebook I wanted to get being sold out due to
christmas. Otherwise I'd be reporting glorious success or failure rather than
my vague plans and suspicions.

If I can't get it working headless, well, I'd figure a way to get it working
on one of my linux desktops, although I'm not sure the microscopic gain in
being able to print exceeds the microscopic increase in electrical use. The
cost of wasted toner and paper would likely exceed the cost of the
electricity...

My existing desktops all have google drive and printer access so anytime I
print something, to pick up the printed sheets I'd have to physically walk
past a machine that could do the printing instead of the chromebook. And its
kind of a post paper world so I don't print very much. If my printer broke I
don't know if I'd bother buying another.

------
na85
I don't think it's all that surprising. If my daily routine consisted mostly
of email and simple documents (i.e. not code) I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
They're great little machines.

I had a chance to play with the Pixel version and it's really nice. Cold boots
in something like 7 seconds. Chiclet-style keyboard, nice touchpad, etc.

Truthfully I'm not sure my next laptop won't be a chromebook anyways: Surely
it's possible to put linux on them, in which case you've basically got
yourself a netbook.

~~~
j2kun
My daily routine consists of code and I still enjoy my chromebook. It has ssh,
so I don't need to wipe everything to do the little bit of coding I need to
when I'm on the go.

It's not a replacement for my desktop machine, but still worth the $250 bucks.

~~~
seabrookmx
Using crouton you don't need to wipe it to run Linux. It installs Debian or
Ubuntu into a chroot.

I agree with the SSH sentiment though.

~~~
faceponder
Does using crouton have any impact on battery life?

------
SyneRyder
A little anecdote to add - just before Christmas, I ran into a Google rep who
was doing customer research at an electronics store, observing customers who
tried a Nexus 7 or Chromebook & noting down what they were most interested in
(then offering to answer questions about the devices).

Once I told him I was a developer, he loosened up and started talking about
their marketing strategy. He said that Google is pushing Chromebooks hard in
2014, and have been frustrated by stores not using the marketing displays they
provide. (Apparently my city is a test market.)

Most interesting to me, he said the main use case he was hearing customers ask
about was video chat. (Something which probably wouldn't show up in
StatCounter numbers.) Customers were most interested in Skype, but if they'd
settle for Google Hangouts, then they were particularly interested in the
Chromebooks. (He also said many older customers were buying the Nexus 7 purely
as a Skype device.)

------
bdfh42
A hit or not - but I just ordered one.

I stopped carrying a Windows laptop around early in 2013 when I switched to a
Nexus 10 for everyday use. Now I want to show other people that there are
alternatives even within the familiar laptop form factor. Plus I want to
demonstrate to customers that I can deliver a fully functional application
without Windows.

~~~
acheron
It's funny, I would have agreed with you not all that long ago, but nowadays
I'm much more concerned about avoiding Google than I am about avoiding
Windows.

~~~
bdfh42
I take your point but my switching to a Nexus was all about form factor and
convenience than any specific issue with Windows. Now I am going to try out a
Chromebook - pretty confident that it can support my day to day (non coding)
requirements.

The security issues do have to be addressed and we do need to get the spies
out of our lives but as far as I can see all the available platforms are
currently corrupted by those agencies at the moment.

------
ajcarpy2005
Chromebooks actually can be viable for coding. Firstly, Crouton lets you
operate Linux and switch instantly between ChromeOS and Linux. Secondly, you
can use an online IDE through Chrome. Thirdly, you could remotely operate in
Windows using either a personal machine or a hosted Web server and this could
be either through Linux or Chrome. This would enable using Visual Studio, for
instance. I think the Chromebook Pixel with a decent home Server used for a
traditional and powerful desktop environment would pair quite nicely.

~~~
JAFTEM
That's great and all, but I'm still confused why I would want one over a
traditional laptop (or ultrabook) with OS X, Windows, or Linux unless it's
purely to save money on a less expensive Chromebook model.

~~~
ceras
Cheaper and simpler. I don't like all the baggage that comes with Windows/Mac:
ChromeOS auto-updates, has no bloatware, boots up instantly, backs everything
up in the cloud, and has a clean minimal UI that I don't have to think about
-- nor do the less technical members of my family (they never _really_
understood how to use Windows after all these years, just memorized a few
steps for common actions).

For $199 I have a computer that runs 10hrs on battery and does everything I
need in the simplest way possible -- far simpler than the competition, that's
for sure.

The question I have is why would I want a traditional laptop over this? They
offer extra features I just don't need at the cost of complexity, maintenance,
battery life, and price.

------
Osiris
My daughter is using my CR-48 beta Chromebook. She watches Youtube videos,
uses Wikipedia, writes stories in Google Docs, and plays Flash-based web games
(which are admittedly quite slow on the CR-48's hardware).

There's really not much she's missing out on. I don't have to worry about the
drive crashing (docs are saved in Google Drive), her pressing a button she
shouldn't, or downloading malware. It's a really great device for children and
anyone that spends most of their computer time online.

~~~
thirdsight
That's fine until your Internet connection is down for 4 days and she's due an
assignment that needs to be emailed or printed.

The device is a lemon then.

At least with a normal Mac/PC you can plug a printer in it.

~~~
plg
Eventually (soon I hope) internet connectivity will be truly like electricity.
I wonder how many arguments there were 100 yrs ago about how device X or
activity Y were useless because "what happens when the electricity goes down"?

Anyway it's a relevant argument today because as you say, we don't want the
new "my dog ate my homework" to be "our internet went down and so I couldn't
access my work on the cloud"

~~~
auctiontheory
_Eventually (soon I hope) internet connectivity will be truly like
electricity._

I live in Silicon Valley, and based on my internet options (one sole
unreliable option: Comcast), I have to say that we're far from the day that
connectivity is like electricity.

------
adolph
Maybe the relevant question for this audience is "Chromebook: Is It an
Addressable Market?"

I wasn't able to find an application in the Chrome Web Store with a price.
Maybe the store for proper Chromebooks is different? Sure lots of things are
freemium or charge on the services side. However, I was expecting at least a
few applications that cost something. Are there enough Chromebook users and do
they buy software/services?

~~~
waps
Here you go :

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tank-hero-laser-
wa...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tank-hero-laser-wars-
full/ijagejjpbmmncimfclgcadddaeghidpn)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/they-need-to-be-
fe...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/they-need-to-be-
fed/madbiikglegjjjgpokagkobjaioeekpd)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rick-
oshea/maphdck...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rick-
oshea/maphdckppfiebmdamocchcdicghghjdl)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wordflow/ldjhnilbg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wordflow/ldjhnilbgipkdpgpdpadfenmoighdebo)

You even have the sales numbers effectively in there at the moment :

They need to be fed : 1013 users @ 0.99$

Tank hero : 233 users @ 0.99$

Rick O'Shea : 404 users @ 0.99$

Wordflow : 1547 users @ 1.99$ (not a game, a "distraction free" editor)

------
johnatwork
I'm actually thinking about going from a MacBook Air and Mac Mini setup to Mac
Mini and Chromebook setup.

The limitations of the Chromebook might actually be a good thing to remove
distractions for me. I've been trying using
Nitrous.io([https://www.nitrous.io](https://www.nitrous.io)), and although I
miss not being able to use Vim shortcuts, I've been somewhat productive with
it. I'm hesitant to pay for the service now. And I wonder if I I would be
better served if I installed Linux instead (even though I hear that you have
to do a weird dev boot sequence every time?).

Invitation link to Nitrous.io, if anyone would like to try
[https://www.nitrous.io/join/X01nmhYHezs](https://www.nitrous.io/join/X01nmhYHezs)

------
adricnet
We bought one for her mom. While we won't know for a few months how that
experiment works out I was pleased with my experience with it while setting it
up for her (adding account, bookmarks, and fooling around). I could write on
it, especially as I use Google's office applications more and other web apps,
ssh for the rest.

I think the Desktop Apps available in the Chrome Web Store and the
accompanying Chrome Apps icon in my Mac's Dock and Windows taskbar are much
more interesting developments and I imagine Apple and Microsoft are rather
more concerned about that than the netbooks. This is not the first intrusion
of browser based applications onto desktop computers (Prism ,etc) but it
certainly the boldest and works quite smoothly.

------
shawndumas
okay bringing out the anecdotal stories.

firstly, my son used a chromebook and ssh'ed into cloud nine in order to do
most of his learning of JavaScript and web development.

secondly, my wife has been using the chromebook the last year to do all of her
homeschooling planning, finances, correspondence, and web browsing.

tertiarily, my father who spent the week with us over the holidays, used my
wife's chromebook to great effect and is planning on buying one as soon as he
gets back.

------
andrewljohnson
The money quote:

 _NPD’s numbers would have us believe Chromebook’s were nearly 50 times more
popular (9.6% of the market vs. 0.2%) in a segment that grew 25% from last
year. That’s rather remarkable as it would suggest sales increased perhaps
sixtyfold._

What else grew 60x this year, besides bitcoin and chromebooks?

~~~
azakai
The quote is _skeptical_ of those numbers - "would have us believe" is the
indicator of that.

The entire article investigates whether the 60x number from NPD is plausible
or not.

The article's conclusion seems to be: perhaps in one segment of the market,
but it isn't clear which segment, yet at the same time it is clear that sales
are in fact rising to _some_ extent. One measurement shows a 10x increase,
much of it very recent. So something interesting is going on, but we don't
quite know what or how much.

The best way to answer this would be to get actual sales numbers from Google,
and stop guessing using indirect sources.

~~~
sounds
While Google is unlikely to disclose actual sales figures, their marketing
department likely has made some effort to figure out what is happening.

My (anecdotal, N=1) evidence is in seeing people who were frustrated by the
iPad. The iPad really did a huge amount of volume and I'm hearing from a few
people that they wanted something more like a Chromebook.

------
Kiro
One thing that the author is

------
corresation
While this is a rehash of exactly the pattern we saw as Android grew
("Shipments not sales. Haven't seen one in a coffee shop. No one in my family.
Some web stat source says..."), with the same players regurgitating their old
hits, I do wonder why people trust StatCounter so much?

StatCounter relies upon subject sites adding a bit of code that reports back
to StatCounter, giving them their metrics. Curious, I inspected every single
site I visit in a typical day, and zero of them have the StatCounter code.

I am invisible to StatCounter. I don't roll with Chromebook, so not really
relevant in this case, but it's interesting how frequently StatCounter is used
to make some proclamation or other with no one ever questioning what their
coverage is.

~~~
bane
> Haven't seen one in a coffee shop. No one in my family. Some web stat source
> says..."), with the same players regurgitating their old hits, I do wonder
> why people trust StatCounter so much?

And what has the actual result been over time? Are we looking for confirmation
anecdotes in the wrong places? It seems to me that many of those early stats
turned out to be true. For example, Android devices dominates the global
smartphone market at over 80%. That's either a lot of shipped but not sold
devices sitting on shelves filling up every inch of floor space in retail
stores around the world, or this kind of stat tracking has some validity.

~~~
eli
Not disagreeing with you, but it's interesting that iPhone still dominates
Android in metrics that measure actual use (go check android vs iphone in your
web logs, for example).

~~~
bane
Yeah, that's true. I wonder if that's an artifact of the sites used by
populations in different countries. A U.S. site would bias towards U.S. users
which is _not_ entirely dominated by Android devices.

~~~
eli
I wonder if the availability of really cheap (and often crappy) Android phones
skews the stats. At least in the US you can get a "free" one with a new plan.
I suspect the people who get those phones are far less likely to use apps or
websites.

It would be easy enough to test the location theory: just slice your web
traffic by country or find someone with a big non-US site

~~~
bane
> At least in the US you can get a "free" one with a new plan.

Unless something has changed, you still end up with a data plan which is
expensive if you don't plan on using it at all. I suspect something else is
going on with the reported stats, but I'm not sure what it is.

I'd really like to see some more in depth research on this phenomenon whatever
the cause is.

------
undoware
The Curious Case of Forbes: Does anyone there use something OTHER than
Windows?

Seriously, guys. You reek of dad. Your ability to predict and understand the
tech market is undercut by the demographic of reporters needed to furnish
reporting to your markets. This is why you all understand Burberry a lot
better than Blackberry, and that a lot better than any of the devices that
have come out since the Bush administration.

I am replacing you with a tiny shell that accepts PayPal from Microsoft.

Thank you.

~~~
walshemj
And everyone knows that Barbour is the way to go :-) style tip dont wear them
with the Barbour enamel badge on very non U.

