Chromebook (2011)

When the world first realised ‘the cloud’ wasn’t just bad weather

Chromebook? You’re not talking about a shiny premium version of Facebook, are you?

We are not. At least, we hope not, because that would be deeply weird. Then again, Chromebooks were pretty strange when they first appeared. Google had imagined a universe in which everything you’d ever want to do on a computer would be squirted through a web browser – specifically, Google Chrome. They sold the concept by noting that people wouldn’t have to spend money on applications or think about safeguarding documents and data by backing everything up. That’s good, because people don’t like spending money or thinking. Did it work? It depends who you ask. Pundits initially griped that Chromebooks weren’t identical to their existing laptops: they lacked ports, DVD drives and even certain keys on the keyboard; they only worked online and didn’t have the pro apps that PC users liked. But about a year later, these experts all changed their minds – in part because Chromebooks became ridiculously cheap, but mostly because by that point the things had been selling like hot tech-cakes (especially in education) and the pundits had all been proved decisively wrong.

So laptops that only run browsers were a big success! Why did no one see that coming? Given that by 2011 millions of normal people already lived online and only cared about Netflix, Youtube, Google Docs and arguing on social media, we really should have. Over the following decade, Chromebooks carved themselves out a sizeable niche; today they run Android apps, let you do more offline, and can even rival Apple in terms of premium bling. Mind you, cheaper models still chug along if you have the audacity to leave open loads of tabs, like normal people do. We probably should have seen that coming too.