HTC had reportedly been working with Google on a tablet for a little while until it was canned. Now, Chromium is showing conceptual renderings, including a video, of what a Google Chrome Tablet might look like.


Chromium has published photos and a video that indicate how the UI will work on a Chrome tablet. The key areas being explored include 3 different “keyboard interaction” types “with the screen”:
- Launchers as an overlay, providing touch or search as means to access web sites.
- Contextual actions triggered via dwell.
- Zooming UI for multiple tabs
- Tabs presented along the side of the screen (see Side tabs)
- Creating multiple browsers on screen using a launcher

The video shows more than just multitasking. How about multiple finger gestures?

In spite of the slick video demonstration, I am skeptical about Chrome for tablets. For one thing, I do not like the idea of “Cloud Computing.” Android is much further along and is a dedicated touchscreen OS. With the way that smartphone screen resolutions keep on increasing (like the Droid’s 854 x 480), Android 2.1 and beyond have potential to scale in accordance with larger displays. Chrome makes more sense for netbooks (one of which is rumored to be coming later this year).

Source: The Chromium Project