14 DAY TRIAL // Google Chrome OS has set itself quite a hard-to-reach goal, namely to make everything a web app. Google has said from the beginning that there will be no native applications for Chrome OS except the Chrome browser itself. While web apps today are capable of amazing things, nobody, not even everyone at Google, believes that they can replace any native app and OS capability out there.
One of the most interesting use cases is printing. The case has always been that you need drivers, printing APIs and dedicated apps, to add print support to an OS. For non-mainstream operating systems like Linux, this has always been a problem. With Chrome OS, which is loosely based on Linux, Google is looking to overcome this problem and, in a sense, revolutionize printing, with the so-called Google Cloud Print. It’s an elegant solution to the problem and it is now starting to take shape.
Google Cloud Print will work with any printer out there. Just select the file you want to print and a printer you want to use, anywhere in the world, and let the ‘cloud’ do the work. It sounds great, but the flaws with the system are easy to spot. First of all, for this to work, you need a way of connecting any printer to the web, which is easier said than done.
A major first step comes from the partnership with HP. The electronics giant announced a new line of ‘cloud-aware’ printers, which can connect directly to the Google cloud. You can access and print Docs documents and photos from Picasa from the printer itself and you can use them as destinations for Google Cloud Print without the need for a PC to be involved. HP says it will offer these capabilities across the line, from low-end consumer devices to top business models.
This solves part of the problem, but most people are still stuck with ‘legacy’ printers and this will be the case for years to come. In order to make these work with Google Cloud Print, you will have to use a “proxy” PC, as we anticipated. A dedicated application, Windows, Mac and Linux versions are already available, will run on these computers, Google says, and will serve as a gateway between the cloud service and the printer itself.
This way, Chrome OS users will be able to open a document, in Google Docs, and then print it from their netbooks. They will be able to select a printer from the ones shared with them and, with just a couple of clicks, the document will be printed at the remote location. Google will be making the code for the web printing app available to anyone so mobile app makers could easily incorporate the capability. And you can be sure to expect full support for Google Cloud Print in Android by the time the service launches, along with Chrome OS.