An OS Or A Browser?

Rumors of the finally upcoming Mac Tablet (or whatever it will be called) have been aloud all week. To be honest this is no the iTablet itself anymore that draws my attention. I wonder if Apple will once again try to redefine the way we use Internet devices (from desktops to laptops to MID's).

A couple of months ago I posted a short review of the Lenovo X10S I got myself as a temporary replacement machine. There was a list of applications installed locally:

• Wireless driver for my Canon IP5200R printer
• USB driver for the Fujitsu ScanSnap document scanner
• Primo PDF virtual PDF printer (to be able to create PDF documents from any application)
• Google Talk and Skype messengers
• WWAN driver for my GSM/HSDPA USB modem

Today I went through what is installed on my Vista - based Lenovo X200s and the list is not that very much longer. There are a few more applications, and it looks like almost all of them are used to manage transfer of data to other devices:

• iTunes (to manage music on an iPod, a SlimServer and a BlackBerry)
• Garmin MapSource (to manage maps on Garmin GPS devices)
• Picasa (to manage pictures taken with a digital camera)

And there is the Microsoft Office 2007 suite. So yes, it looks like all but one set of applications are used to handle various I/O functions. Connect to the Internet over cellular network, print something, scan something, send content to a device or receive content from a device. The rest is done inside the browser. Except what is done using Microsoft Office :). Yes the king is still alive. There have been many attempts to dethrone it. But there is still one reason or another to use a local Office application. Online document suites are good for desktops. But at the same time when people started getting ready to move from local to cloud - based document editing, they moved from desktops to laptops. Desktops are all always connected today, with a broadband fixed pipe to the Internet. Not so with laptops. We tend to use them in many places. Not all of them connected. Trains, planes, hotels... There are still many scenarios when high speed connectivity is not available. And local application is needed. I travel by train very frequently and I spend time editing Word documents of PowerPoint presentations. While I am connected using my cellular modem and while there are alternatives - not to mention Google Documents, but fabulous online tools like the SlideRocket, they are risky and difficult to use with poor connectivity.

As you see after this short confession of mine... We are probably still not ready to move to browser - only environment. Before that happens, our companion devices will need to roll out broad sense of autonomous Internet connectivity. We need Eye-Fi in every camera, self updating GPSes, and iPhones that do not require local iTunes hosts to help them get up and running every time a new SIM card is popped in...). And we probably need an alternative to Office, able to function fully off-line in our on-line world. Before that happens we will still not be able to fully live inside a browser.