Chrome OS is all about web apps, and basically involves a modified version of the Chrome browser running on top of Linux. It’ll depend largely on apps from the Chrome web store, which launches today in the U.S. with a 500 app library. Demo apps look native, but are in fact built with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.

The timing of the Chrome web store’s launch is very close to that of another app distribution platform: the Mac App Store, which could arrive as soon as next week if recent reports prove true. Looking at screens of Google’s web app marketplace compared to Apple’s iOS App Store in iTunes, you’d be forgiven for thinking they came out of the same design studio.

But the cosmetic similarity hides a fundamental difference: Google is going all-in on web apps with Chrome OS, while Apple is more or less committed to native apps on both iOS and OS X. Once upon a time, Apple recommended web apps (near the bottom) as the way to get third-party software on the iPhone, but those days have long since passed once Apple added support for native third-party iOS titles in 2008.

As with Android, which is hardware agnostic, Chrome OS isn’t tied to any particular manufacturer the way Apple’s operating systems are. Chrome web apps can even be used on OS X using Google’s browser, so in theory there’s no barrier preventing a Chrome OS user from accessing their data on any machine that can run the Chrome browsers. Apple’s emphasis on native apps means neither data nor applications aren’t as portable and hardware-independent.

Ironically, Chrome OS runs the risk of providing much more of an inconsistent experience because it isn’t picky about hardware. Android is already tremendously fragmented, with multiple versions in active service, and different device-specific flavors being used by different manufacturers, though that has improved somewhat recently. Chrome OS seems vulnerable to the same kind of fragmentation, though maybe not to such an extreme degree since lightweight browsers often run well across many hardware configurations.

If Apple has one major advantage in the expanding battle with Google, it’s that Cupertino has the underpinnings of a unified, cross-platform approach in place. The Mac App Store and the iOS App Store are both all about native apps. OS X Lion promises to draw the ties that bind between itself and iOS even closer still. Chrome OS, on the other hand, is focused on web apps and seems to share little of the narrative behind Android and its marketplace, beyond not being picky about hardware.

Google’s not making it easy to connect the dots between Chrome OS and Android, and it doesn’t look intent on doing so in the foreseeable future. Even without a clear link between the two, Chrome OS is a new front for Apple to keep an eye on in the ongoing war between open and integrated.

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I’m talking about Google’s brand-new (on paper) Chrome OS. Introduced only a day ago, I’m disappointed we didn’t get a comic book to describe to us simpletons how this will revolutionize our life. Because it’s from Google. So you can run the company’s services. And see its ads.

With all the talk about how this impacts Microsoft, Linux, Apple and hardware manufacturers, the most important participant is ignored: the consumer. We already knew netbooks were primarily a geek’s toy, at best mildly interesting to general consumers, until Windows became available on them. Suddenly, they became an even cheaper cheap laptop, and sold in the millions. That’s still their consumer image today, and still fuels their sales. Google says people are clamoring for a leaner base from which to just launch a web browser, but that’s exactly how netbooks began — with the Linux/Firefox combo already mentioned — and consumers didn’t go there.

Besides, if Google just wants a newer web experience, it could port Chrome to Linux and work with a Linux distro to strip it to run lean. There’s no reason whatsoever for Google to write its own OS if this is all it wants, especially given that its first OS hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm.

Since this is Google, there are numerous posts hailing Chrome OS and questioning how it will change everything. I’ve seen the Wayne Gretzky “puck” quote bandied about. It’s nice to talk about skating to where the puck will be — Steve Jobs used it, and Apple seems to get there. The problem is that Jobs usually knows the users’ end goal, and therefore does know where the puck will be. Others do not. In fact, they frequently don’t even know the puck is going to be in the rink, let alone near the net.

Here are some things to consider before we get too excited about Chrome OS:

• It’s vaporware. Over a year away? That’s a lifetime in this market.
• In timing the announcement near Windows 7′s RTM, Google may hope to stall potential netbook gains Windows 7 might garner for Microsoft (i.e., The “Google OS” is coming, let’s wait). A market-freeze-via-vapor-announcement is classic Microsoft, and though it’s amusing to see its own tactic used against the company, it doesn’t make it any better coming from Mountain View instead of Redmond.
• Given Google’s track record, we can expect to see it in a year (assuming it’s on time) with a beta tag for maybe two years.
• Will being “Google” be enough to push the masses (there are those pesky consumers again) into buying netbooks in droves like the availability of Windows did?
• Netbooks are a familiar and traditional form factor; there’s nothing really different there. Consumers have shown they want a familiar and traditional OS on them.
• The real creativity in operating systems today is in the smartphone world, and will require a non-traditional form factor — not a small laptop — to carry over into larger devices.

Finally, Google’s announcement implies a certain disdain for a traditional computer OS, like it’s something that only hinders launching Google’s browser to use Google’s stuff. Sorry, while my browser is one of the apps I run all the time, I have many others as well. The web is nowhere near ready to replace this. It hasn’t the ubiquity, it hasn’t the reliability, it hasn’t the diversity and it hasn’t the speed. The idea that in a year we’ll begin moving from OS’s providing great flexibility and numerous functions — of which using the web is just one — to some “all-web” OS is not analogous to skating to where the puck will be; it’s analogous to people who once thought flying cars were just around the corner.

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