racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Google’s Chrome OS has been a novelty because of the idea of putting everything on the Web. Now that Apple will be releasing its upcoming OS X Lion soon, it seems they’re taking a page out of the Chrome OS playbook by adding a browser-only mode.

Beta versions of Mac OS X Lion feature a “restart to Safari” mode, which can be used to leave your current session and open a browser-only session, sans the desktop, finder, dock and other desktop UI elements. You’re basically left with something like Chrome OS’ interface–just the browser.

This option can be accessed from the user lock/login screen, which means you can boot right into Safari-only mode if you don’t want to access your desktop. Perhaps this is some form of guest-only mode. Some early reviewers say it’s a good way to troubleshoot your computer in case a catastrophic error happens and you need to research how to troubleshoot. Still, with Lion’s new auto save and and restore capabilities, you can return to your regular desktop and all your apps and sessions will still be there.

Will this new feature be a challenge to Chrome OS? Probably not, since Chrome OS was designed primarily to be a browser-only OS. OS X Lion, on the other hand, is a full-fledged desktop operating system and you would need to boot it up until the login screen before you can access Safari. In contrast, Chrome OS promises to be lighter and quicker, although you will need access to either a Wi-Fi network or 3G. Then, there’s the price. If you compare prices, the latest Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung are about half or almost a third the price of the cheapest MacBook.

Will OS X Lion’s browser-only mode put Chromebooks to shame?

Safari has been my preferred browser of late. One of my only gripes is that it’s not like open source Firefox or Camino, which usually have updates every few weeks or so. Still, Safari seems to be a fast, solid, no-frills browser.

One thing I like about it is that its rendering engine seems to catch mis-coded XHTML quite nicely–meaning, it displays badly coded stuff badly! Another one is the clean RSS view I just access a site using feed:// (url here) and I get a no-frills content-only view of that blog or site (now some would argue against this, but I prefer this when I want to quickly check sites for updates).

Just recently, Apple announced that the public beta of Safari 3 is now available for download. And what do you know–it now runs on Windows!

It’s still on beta, though and I know there are a lot of bugs to be found (and fixed!). I even spot a few UI inconsistencies here and there (like saying OPTION-something as a shortcut, even though Windows keyboards don’t have an OPT key). But I’m pretty optimistic about it, though.

I’ve installed it on my Windows machine, and I can say Safari is pretty spiffy. It’s like software from a different world installed on a Windows-powered computer (much like how Windows users might initially find iTunes). I’ll be installing the beta on my Mac in a while. Hopefully that will resolve some small gripes I have with Safari 2.xx (like the inability to run Google Docs).

I just started writing for another new blog, and I’m pretty excited. Why? It’s about Apple!

The “Apple Gazette”:http://applegazette.com just launched as the newest member of the Bloggy Network family. What’s great is that we’re just into “our first few posts”:http://www.applegazette.com/mac/10-apps-to-increase-productivity-on-your-mac/ and we’re already getting dugg frontpage! And we hope to keep you MacHeads out there happy with our posts about Mac-related news and tips on how to maximize your Mac experience.

I know it probably won’t get as wide an audience as “BloggingPro”:http://bloggingpro.com or “Forevergeek,”:http://www.forevergeek.com since Apple users are still a minority. However, what we will lack in sheer numbers will be made up for by the quality of readership. There’s the passion that comes with being a Mac user. And remember, each purchase of a Mac comes with a free license for a holier-than-thou attitude.

Don’t underestimate the Cult of Mac.

Incidentally, do also check out the latest about BloggingPro. “We now sport a fresh, brand-new design”:http://www.bloggingpro.com/archives/2006/10/06/welcome-to-the-new-bloggingpro/ (well, “David”:http://phoenixrealm.com did all the work, actually).

And guess who just earned his own link on the frontpage!