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by pier25·9y ago·view on hn ↗
We definitely need a universal OS for all our devices and I really believe Google is in a great position to get us there.

It would really surprise me if Apple got there first. Tim lacks vision and will keep on milking iOS even if the iPad Pro is a failure as a laptop replacement.

Windows is still king in the desktop space, at least as far a user base goes, but it's terrible on tablets and phones. MS has all the tech in place with UWP, but it's still pretty far in the race in terms of simplicity and usability.

Chrome OS ticks all the right boxes, and is experiencing a huge growth, but it's not universal. If Andromeda is real, and it's able to become a universal OS that merges Chrome OS and Android it might be the best thing since sliced bread.

12 comments
You may "definitely need" a universal OS but I'm far from convinced I do.

I don't buy that a finger and a mouse/trackpad pointer are equivalent input devices. One obscures the display and is imprecise. The other, well, isn't.

I'm fine with a different server OS than desktop. I see no compelling reason why I need a single OS for all of my personal devices.

You listed windowing/UI concerns. And, while they may commonly come bundled with the OS, they're not the same thing.
They're a platform concern.

Not only does the OS UI reflect the input method, every single application you run does as well. A touch-optimized application will be clumsy and primitive when using a mouse; a mouse-optimized application will be miserable when using a finger.

If an application can be written once for both, often it'll be a poor compromise or only properly support one of the two input methods.

Look at how awful early Java "write once run everywhere" applications were. Yes, some of that was the Java platform itself, but developers were given the opportunity to ignore platform-specific UX concerns and many eagerly embraced it.

Again, the problem is pretending to use the same UI for all input methods. And I agree that is a mistake.

But what if you could use the same language and frameworks on all devices? The same tools (IDE, code editor, compiler, etc)? That's what I'm referring to.

I think a single platform for all our devices: mobile, tablet, desktop, etc, is a mistake. The word platform means more than just the OS and includes the entire L&F/experience with the UI.

I think a single OS for them all is fine.

Consider gnome+linux vs android+linux. They're both linux, and they're not the same platform.

The UI can adapt to the input devices, that not an OS concern.
The UI is but a small part of an OS or an application.

It's obvious that the UI has to be different depending on the device, input, etc.

As much as I'd like to see it, I don't think Windows will ever quite get there. Not, at least, in any recognisable form. They value backwards-compatibility way to much (which is to be commended in some ways, but won't save them here). While they seem to have everything lined up to be able to turn it into something, developers seem too reluctant to get on-board too.

Apple will have to go through all of the growing pains Microsoft has already weathered, so they're miles off, but maybe they can do it faster because they don't care as much about what people think of them, and are willing to do whatever they think is right (if it is or not is to be seen).

Google is well placed because, while they have a bunch of platforms, the only one in the desktop space is basically dead, and really didn't ever have too much investment in it, so not too many feel put out if they get rid of it. But that not even the case, because they're able to engineer everything so that it stays relevant.

> developers seem too reluctant to get on-board too

Might be limited to your specific environment though. As a counter-example among the people I know there are far more .NET devs than the total sum of iOS/Mac/Android devs.

I'm not referring to .NET. I know tonnes of people getting on board to .NET train. I'm referring to the UWP apps. Nearly no one seems to be getting on board that.
> I'm referring to the UWP apps.

Then I have to agree with you; UWP will go the way of Windows RT & the dodo, unless MS forces it as the main dev paradigm (which seems unlikely).

Limited to their specific environment? You mean the world?
Does Tim lack vision, or does he just not share your vision? You might think we "need" this but not everyone agrees. Combining Chrome OS and Android is uninteresting to me, since I wouldn't be able to develop on it or really do any of the things I use a computer for. Unless they plan to really build on it and attempt to compete with more mature desktop operating systems.
He lacks vision, not because he doesn't share my vision, but because of everything he has done in Apple. That's not to say he is a bad CEO, he isn't IMO, but he is only polishing the same ideas from 10-15 years ago. I'm not even arguing that's a bad thing per se, it's just how things are.

Also, I really don't see how a developer could argue against the notion of having a single language, API, IDE, compiler, etc, for working on all devices.

> Combining Chrome OS and Android is uninteresting to me, since I wouldn't be able to develop on it or really do any of the things I use a computer for.

Time will tell.

> We definitely need a universal OS for all our devices

Wait, do we? Why?

I'd say to have a common interface towards hardware that is quickly becoming similar across smartphones, tablets, and even laptops (read Chromebooks)?

I think why they would _not_ have the same interface between similar hardware and similar applications is a better question.

As for the user interface and bundled applications, let's not confuse "Operating System" with that although it's popular for some stupid reason. The one and same OS could of course have e.g. completely different window managers adapted for different human-device interactions and use cases. But that's very distanced from the actual OS, that is pretty much only interested in how to run and expose the hardware to the software.

Save man-centuries of platform-specific work?
Terrible on tablets and phone? Phones I can agree with but the surface line is getting to be really solid. I've been an iPad guy for years and my next tablet will be a surface.
A surface isn't a tablet, it's a laptop with a touch screen. I've tried them and they are really nice as laptop but they fallback to a finger hostile UI way to often to be called tablets.
Indeed. The tablet aspect is pretty mediocre.
I had a Surface Pro 4 for a while and it is really great for the first few weeks but when the honeymoon period is over, the warts start to show. Slowly but surely I gravitated back to my iPad and laptop. The day the SP4 went back to Costco was when I realized it had been collecting dust for over a week.
Yes, we do. I want my phone and my laptop to be in total sync, I want to be able to write code on my mobile which I can just continue on my laptop without any hindrance, currently I have a mac and an android phone, I do have Go and Python installed on my mobile, but it isn't that great to code on my mobile, I have to host the repo on an internal version of gogs to get the code synced up and I still have to manually push the code around.

All hail Universal OS!!

And can a universal OS be everything to a power user and still be useful to a beginner?
This is what Smalltalk was intended to be, back in the day. The answer is yes, but you may not be able to get more than a few people to adopt it anyways. (There were no smartphones back then, but it did get to the point where grade school children, professional developers, and researchers were using basically the same programming environment, just with customized interfaces for their particular group.)
Yes, for a beginner who does not need the advanced stuff, they can just ignore it right?

As of now, I never use Google drive sync, I use syncthing to sync folders between mobile and my Mac.

Universal OS rocks! (I hope it is in line with my vision of how the concept of universality is) I want to just visually ssh the phone and the machine, or rather the OS is in the phone and I just connect it to the machine, there was some project recently I don't know if it is available now.

Edit: Why the downvotes?

You could always develop remotely, use your phone to ssh into a more powerful machine. Use tmux or screen and pick up right where you were on a laptop or desktop. This is far more compelling IMHO.
To be usable, SSH to a more powerful machine requires a good and stable connection. That's almost never available, in my experience. If I'm on my phone, I'm likely to be on trains/planes/in tunnels/in the countryside/etc.
Tmux or screen? Wouldn't it be nice if there were a graphics-over-the-network system?
Yes, I have to figure out the typing issue with mobile first!
Why stop there? I want to dock my phone to the TV and work with a remote control, I want to dock it to the car and control it with steering wheel buttons.
> I want to dock it to the car and control it with steering wheel buttons.

...about that steering wheel...

Of course, that's the natural progression.
No, I don't want it in my car. If it connects to my home then I am fine.
On OS X all my stuff syncs between my iDevices
But I don't have an iPhone, I have an android phone, I use syncthing, but this isn't the kind of sync I hope, I want both the OSes to be quite same with inbuilt sync not through the internet but through my LAN
Operating System is about applications. Even if Google comes up with a universal OS there will be many applications that only run on Windows forcing people to continue to use it
And this is why we need an open source clone of Windows, which is king of the desktop OS. Beside geeks, the average people doesn't care about operating systems, they care about being able to run their apps.

It's sad that ReactOS doesn't get more support from the community.

Exactly, Google is in the best situation. Their Android is by far the most used OS/shell (world wide market share).

Apple's CEO lacks the vision and is milking the status quo. Their iOS market share is a lot smaller and limited to a few devices.

Microsoft's CEO lacks the vision and is aggressively milking the status quo. They aggressively try to enforce a switch to software-as-a-service plus they are no in the gray adware/spyware business capturing way too much end user data which shades bad light. And the killed their QA. Their products since 2010 are a disaster. That's why XBoxOne tanked in all market beside US, WinPhone tanked world wide, Win8 and Win10 marketshare is lot smaller than Win7, which is the major desktop OS - and there is little reason to switch away from Win7. MSFT would profit from a 180 degree U-turn with a new management.

Do you really want Google, that has DNS, fiber, search engine, emails, calendar, phone contacts, ads, deep learning, app store, CDN, analytics, web browser, maps, power plants to ALSO handle your desktop OS ?

That seems very, very dangerous to me.

Actually we already are in the red zone, I just wish we don't go crimson. But I doubt people will care. They didn't up to now, no reason it changes.

What? God no.

We need competition. A single OS controlled by a single corporation with their own conflicting interests is a million miles from what we need.

We don't need a universal OS. I'd go as far to say that a universal OS is bad. A universal OS leaves no place for experimentation, no place for different UI concepts, no place for people to customize things to the way they want. Would you really want every shirt to look the same? Every refrigerator, every door? Style is important.
People usually confuse an OS with a UI.

Obviously different devices need different UIs.

> Windows [...] [is] terrible on tablets and phones.

Surface tablets seem to be doing OK though.

What percent of people regularly use them as tablets without the keyboard?
I think there are several different characteristics that make us categorise a device as a tablet vs. a laptop, input methods being just one of them; there are many others e.g. form-factor, weight, battery life etc.
How many touch optimized apps are on the Surface? I haven't seen many. The majority are still desktop apps and using desktop apps on a tablet isn't a very good UI experience.
Yes I know where you are coming from but as I said in another comment I don't think that the input method should be the main element that defines the difference between a laptop and a tablet.