As most of you know, Google has three main OS’. These include Android, their mobile operating system, Chrome OS, their desktop operating System and Google TV, which of course is for your TV. Why does Google need to have so many different OS’ under their belt? Isn’t that a prime example of fragmentation? When you look at other Operating Systems from their major competitors like Microsoft and Apple. You don’t see as many different versions of operating systems for different devices. With Apple you have iOS running phones, tablets, and their TV box. Then you have OS X which is their desktop OS but it is slowly merging with iOS. Now onto Microsoft, with Windows 8 they merged their phone, tablet and desktop OS all into one OS. Now it’s Google turn.
I’ve used both Chrome OS and Android for quite a bit. But never really had a chance to use Google TV. Chrome OS is a nice looking OS and it’s pretty easy to use, especially since it’s mostly just a browser. Android is the most popular of Google’s different OS’ since you find it on just about every phone or tablet out there. We have heard that Google is looking to merge Google TV with Android. Now when will that happen? Who knows. Hopefully it happens soon because Google TV is dying rather quickly. Although we have seen some rather cool devices come out lately for Google TV like the Hisense Pulse and the ASUS Qube which will be at CES. But then there’s the Archos TV Connect, which basically turns your TV into a big Android tablet. That could be the first step to a unified OS.
With Android 4.0 – Ice Cream Sandwich, Google started unifying the tablet and smartphone into one OS, instead of having Honeycomb for tablets and Gingerbread for smartphones. This continued with Android 4.1 – Jelly Bean. And I expect it to continue with the next few versions of Android. Hopefully in 2013 they’ll bring all three of the operating systems together for one user experience.
What I’m hoping for with Android 5.0, is for Google to announce a unified version of Android. Having it bring together Chrome OS, and Google TV to Android. Also having a Nexus-branded Google TV device would be pretty cool as well. You already see quite a few Google TV apps in the Play Store, so why can’t other Android apps work on Google TV or even Chrome OS. That would be pretty awesome. If other platforms can do it why not Google? It will be interesting to see what Google has in store for us at CES next week and Google I/O in May for the next version of Android.
What are your thoughts on a unified Google-powered OS? Good Idea? Let us know in the comments below.