Compared to BeOS, Web apps that are cached are in no way lightweight and responsive. Maybe we're defining lightweight and responsive differently. I am thinking about the real-time media capabilities of BeOS which let you drag around videos on Pentium IIs. I'm thinking about native C++ applications and a completely multithreaded system. I'm thinking about Gobe Productive and native e-mail clients. For me, lightweight runs on a Pentium Pro with 64MB RAM.
Gmail is not lightweight. Compared to Yahoo Mail or Live Mail, its design is airy, and it's well-optimized. Let's be honest: Chrome OS is only here to tap the netbooks. It's not going to revive the massive amount of old hardware that BeOS could use. YouTube isn't lightweight. Chrome's process-per-tab system isn't lightweight.
Re:Google Chrome OS Screenshots?
by GeneralMaximus on Sunday August 16, 2009 @03:03AM
(#765768)
Web apps can't hope to achieve the kind of responsiveness BeOS offered, at least not for a few more years. Unless you have near-zero network latency and multithreaded JavaScript apps, you cannot possibly build responsive web apps. We will get there, sure, but it will take a while.
BTW, I know this because I use Haiku on my PC. Haiku is responsive because it has been built to be that way from the ground up :)
Web apps that are cached should be both light weight and responsive