Everyone is wondering what Google is up and whether they are taking shots at Apple after one of its engineers posted a video and images online, showing a mock up tablet computer running Chrome.
Google have only just released their Nexus One Google phone which is believed by some to be the nearest competitor to the Apple iPhone the world has seen so far.
So could these latest pics seen on the Chromium developer’s website be our first glimpse of what Google’s answer to Apple’s iPad might look like?
Check this out, “visual explorations of how a Chrome OS tablet UI might look in hardware” as it said on the site, were posted online two whole days before the iPad was actually launched but because of all the hype surrounding Apple’s major launch, no one actually noticed at first.
“You may have seen our Chrome OS tablet concepts from last Monday; in the video, some floating hands interact with a touch surface” said Chrome designer Glen Murphy in a personal blog post.
“We only used one hand image instead of showing the full range of gestures, but I did make a larger set” he said, which incidentally are available for download on the site.
Was it an attempt to steal some of Apple’s thunder? Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves here as Mr Murphy was probably just showing off the Chrome operating system because after all he is the lead designer for Chrome.
However, you can’t help but wonder, particularly when we consider the timing of the posts.
Anyway, Google always intended that Chrome would be used not just for Netbooks, but eventually for other devices too so a tablet would seem the natural way to go, especially as 2010 has been hailed as the year of the tablet.
Also, Chrome is designed to work best on screen sizes of between 5 and 10 inches, which makes it the perfect partner for tablet computers as well as Netbooks.
Apparently Google are already in discussion with Taiwan based HTC about making a touch screen tablet, remember it was them that built the Google phone too.
Unlike the Apple iPad, a Google Chrome Tablet would be open source meaning that developers could create applications for it, and open source opens up all sorts of other possibilities too.
Google are keeping quiet about whether they are producing a tablet or not, just like Apple did, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were planning an iPad killer tablet.
Watch this space.
