> The FINAL straw was falling in love with a PixelBook that I bought during the Black Friday sales, as I moved into a role in an org that was 1) deeply invested in G Suite and 2) allowed me to do all my work from the browser - making the Chrome OS concept finally fit for me. THEN Google closes that part of their hardware division.

The PixelBook isn't going to stop getting security updates any time soon, so if it was a good machine before the division was closed, why is it a less good machine now?

What if the machine gets lost or damaged?

You've invested in a platform that you now don't have the same kind of access to anymore.

I just checked eBay and found about 150 Pixelbooks, 17 of which are in "Open Box" (a.k.a., pretty much new) condition. I also found 12 refurbished 120GB Zunes. My brother still drives a perfectly functional Pontiac G8, and he has no trouble finding parts for it when he needs to.

You either can either move on to the current-generation technology or buy an old working gadget from someone else. You're never without good options.

What do you think the half life of most electronics is? Why do you think so many people get anxious about Apple "abandoning" the Mac? A trickle of security updates does not make a well supported and thriving product line.

The iPhone 5s from 2013 can run the latest OS.

The latest version of MacOS supports computers back to 2012.

But while the Mac is not a huge percentage of Apple’s revenue, by itself, it makes enough money to be a Fortune 100 company.

Yes, you can run latest iOS. But it is dog slow. Try to use it with at least 3 apps. For a typical user with > 10 apps it is useless.

Not according to reviews. According to reviews, IOS 12 is very performant for 5s. I know it works well on the 6s series.

The number of applications installed doesn't matter. iOS will purge apps if they are running in the background and take up too much CPU or memory. You're not going to have > 10 apps running in the background. More than likely, you won't have any third party apps using CPU time in the background besides playing music or VOIP.

EDIT:

Just realized that you may be referring to macOS. In that case, that would be RAM and/or disk dependent (SSD vs spinning hard drives).

I ran it on an iPhone 6 and it was fine. Your comment about "at least 3 apps" makes very little sense to me; iOS is notoriously aggressive with memory management, and apps must be designed to expect being killed at any time without warning, with only a few specific background tasks allowed to run (and generally for limited times with explicitly defined purposes). I'm sure my phone had upwards of a hundred apps on it, but generally speaking, only one or two were running at any given time because that's true of any iOS device.

You should be purchasing hardware based on whether the current model looks good, not what model may be next in that product line. The latter is pointless and largely impossible.

Chrome OS itself isn't going anywhere.

How the product looks is a very superficial criterion.

As developers we understand the value of the ecosystem and we want to invest in products that last longer that one or two years.

Also I own Apple and Thinkpad laptops that are between 1 and 7 years old and all of them are still working fine. Laptops last longer than smartphones so you want to ensure the platform will be supported for the next 10 years.

Can you honestly say that Google will support Chrome OS for the next 10 years? Personally I doubt it.

> Can you honestly say that Google will support Chrome OS for the next 10 years? Personally I doubt it.

I work for Chrome OS, opinions are my own.

I think yes it will be supported because Google is trying very hard to diversify its revenue streams and Chrome OS actually makes money and is still growing quickly.

Note that Chrome OS is an entirely separate PA (product area) from Hardware.

How does Chrome OS make money? Are there licensing fees involved?

I am not really qualified to answer that question but I believe it's the combination of licensing fees and support

I think there's a super important distinction here between hardware and platforms/software. The GP was annoyed that they bought a PixelBook before Google killed their hardware division. If I bought a Dell XPS laptop to run Windows, and Dell announced the next day they were discontinuing their XPS line, I wouldn't regret my purchase. Dell's decision doesn't change either the utility of my current hardware or the overall Windows ecosystem.

Regardless of whether or not Chrome OS is here to stay—I very much think it is, personally—Google closing their hardware division doesn't tell us much about Chrome OS's future. Only a tiny fraction of Chrome OS hardware comes from Google itself.

> You should be purchasing hardware based on whether the current model looks good, not what model may be next in that product line.

I couldn't disagree more. When I buy a laptop, I want to know that all the time I invest in learning that ecosystem and customizing won't be wasted time. Or any other hardware. Especially if I have to buy apps for it. I want to know that when I get the next piece of hardware, it will support all the software I already know and love (and paid for!)

I'm reluctant to buy into an ecosystem that might be on the decline, because it means a higher chance of that stuff not working anymore.

I always buy the product that's in front of me, in the state it's in, and expect nothing more. This is why I bought a Jaguar I-PACE instead of a Tesla Model 3. A big part of the differentiating Model 3 value seems to be in vague promises for full self-driving capability and in an increasingly robust charging network in the future. Looking at the features the two cars actually have now, as well as where I can get with the charging networks that already exist or are actively under construction, in my book the I-PACE made more sense.

Not entirely. If the ship is sinking (no future development) it's highly likely things like warranties, support, maintenance, etc -- are also sun setting or degrading in quality -- in a sense that most of the brightest and keen individuals in those departments have routed or been reassigned, leaving lack lustre or not as motivated people behind.

I kind of speak from both sides of this, I had some audio hardware I bought but one day they went radio silent (404 site so presumably belly up), so future support was dead along with all their support drivers. Another was an internship I did at a hardware company where there was just maintenance patches being applied to the product, and it was depressing.

> The FINAL straw was falling in love with a PixelBook that I bought during the Black Friday sales, as I moved into a role in an org that was 1) deeply invested in G Suite and 2) allowed me to do all my work from the browser - making the Chrome OS concept finally fit for me. THEN Google closes that part of their hardware division.

FWIW Chrome OS is a separate PA (product area) than Hardware so Hardware closing whatever division likely has very little impact on the support for your Pixelbook.

I am also sad about that though as I really like the Pixelbook =[

You're basing that on pure speculation so be careful what conclusions you're drawing from it. Chromebooks have historically gotten very good support, even though they tended to be relatively underpowered - the pixelbook isn't so I wouldn't expect support to stop anytime soon.

I don't know if it counts as speculation when a number of outlets are reporting on 'roadmap cutbacks,' including asking employees in the Pixel group to look for other roles. [1]

Is it 100% confirmed? No, but that's part of the brand trust referenced in the original post: where there's smoke, there is probably fire, and it would be beneficial to brand trust if Google provided a longer-term roadmap for these products.

Before someone comments "Why doesn't Apple need that type of roadmap?": because Apple has the hardware brand trust that, say, the iPhone isn't going to go away next year simply because the engineers working on it wanted to create an iMessage competitor.

[1] https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/03/13/google-h...

The entire point of the original article is that Google's constant killing of products makes everyone fear what will be next, bc even seemingly popular products get killed off for little to no reason. The entire point of this article is that Google's own actions are fanning the flames of this speculation.