Behold the Google tablet

Now that most people seem to have agreed that the Apple iPad will be more information appliance than fully fledged computer, there’s some debate about how it will stack up against Google’s plans for Chrome OS — particularly since the search monster has just let slip some details of a Chrome OS-powered tablet concept of its own.

Chrome UI designer Glen Murphy has been thinking about how Chrome OS could work on a touch-screen device and he posted some examples of his ideas on the Google Chromium Projects site last Monday — two days before the iPad announcement.

We should stress that the images are simply user interface concepts rather than examples of forthcoming products, but it’s still fascinating to get a glimpse into Google’s R&D department.

As you might expect, Google Chrome on a tablet looks much like Google Chrome on a netbook, but with the addition of an on-screen keyboard. Unlike the single-tasking (at least from a user perspective) iPad though, Murphy is clearly has multi-tasking in mind for his concept device — one photo shows an application switcher in action and the accompanying video shows two applications being manipulated at once.

The UI video demo raises one other interesting point, too. It shows Chrome OS running on a display that has at least a 26” diagonal — hardly portable, but with Apple also rumoured to be working on multi-touch iMacs and a big-screen tablet, could this be the decade in which touch-screens take over from the mouse as our main computer control method?

[ The Chromium Projects]