I can’t pass judgement on the device yet since I haven’t actually touched one. Om has, however, and shared his thoughts. I have a loaner Chromebook Pixel en route later today, so I’ll be able to experience it for myself and form a true impression. But on paper, it’s easy to see why many around the web haven’t warmed up to the Pixel: The cost is a huge barrier for a device that can only use the web or web apps. Yes, the 1 TB of included Google Drive storage for two years essentially negates the price of the Pixel, but that’s a hard sell to mainstream consumers.

Is touch for the web really all there is?

The Chromebook Pixel is for “what’s next”, Google claims. Is it? That depends on what’s next, of course! If I had to make an educated guess on what that is, I’d go with support for Android applications on the Chromebook Pixel. We’ve heard Google talk about merging Android and Chrome in the future but it really hasn’t happened as I had expected it to. In my mind, it would bring the one aspect missing with the Pixel right now: support for a vast ecosystem of applications.

I think this for a few reasons. The first is the comment made at the product launch by Sundar Pinchai, senior vice president of Google Chrome: “Web hasn’t had touch and high-resolution screens before.” Sure it has. Pick up a current model Apple iPad or even Google’s own Nexus 10 tablet: With its 2560 x 1600 resolution touchscreen, the Nexus 10 has a higher pixel density than the new Chromebook Pixel. Clearly, the “touch-enabled web” isn’t what’s next, it’s what we have today on millions of devices.

There’s more value for that touchscreen with Android apps

There’s also the value proposition of a Chromebook that starts at $1,299 for the Wi-Fi model and $1,499 for one with integrated LTE radio. I surely expect better performance from the Intel Core i5 powered Pixel over Intel Pentium Chromebooks in the $200 to $450 range. And the high-resolution display will add to the experience as well. But is that really needed for web work and do these “extras” provide $1,000 or more in benefit? I’m not sure about that just yet, even with the free terabyte of Google Drive storage.

What would be an added benefit is taking advantage of that touchscreen with applications. If Google were to add support for the Dalvik VM where Android apps run, the Pixel makes a little more sense to me as a product. Frankly, we don’t need touch on the web for a laptop form factor when multi-gesture trackpads replicate the experience more ergonomically. But if the touchscreen were leveraged for more use cases, that could add value.

Who wins with better web apps vs. who wins with Android apps

Another thought: Google pushing the Pixel as a means to propel web app development doesn’t just benefit Google. Any modern browser with the same support for HTML 5 and other web standards could take advantage of improved web apps. That doesn’t just apply to traditional computers running Mac OS X or Windows, but potentially even mobile devices. Including Android support on the Chromebook Pixel, however, feeds Google — and only Google — more information about users.

Again, I’m not critiquing the Chromebook Pixel device itself here; I’ll do that once I get my hands on one. And I’ll be evaluating it as a current Chromebook user; I’ve tried all prior Chromebook models and bought my own last year.

I want to know if it’s worth the upgrade to a Pixel as a dedicated Chromebook user. At the moment, I’m really trying to understand Google’s strategy with the Pixel because for much less money, I can do everything on my $450 Chromebook outside of touching the screen to interact with the web. Android application support, however, would enable more usage of that touchscreen while offering the ability to do more offline activity on the Pixel.

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Mobile analytics firm Flurry released its 2012 update on mobile app usage on Wednesday, with data gathered from the more than 250,000 applications it monitors every day, as well as information from ComScore and Alexa. It shows that between December 2011 and December 2012, while we watch TV for 168 minutes per day (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics latest stat, which is from 2011), the firm’s own data shows that we spend 127 minutes per day using mobile apps — either playing games, shopping, checking social media feeds, etc. The 127 minutes is a significant step up from the data measured between December 2010 and December 2011, when we were averaging just 94 minutes per day in smartphone or tablet applications. That’s an increase of 35 percent. At the same time, we are spending a diminishing amount of time browsing the web: Flurry found an average use of 70 minutes per day on the web over the last year, versus 72 minutes per day from the year before.

As the chart shows, the amount that mobile app usage increased is far greater than the decrease in average web use. So while some of our time is shifting from the web to apps, Flurry says the shift is also due to how many more apps are out there today that we’re using more than ever. Plus those apps are doing things we turned to television for:

In fact, we ultimately expect apps on tablets and smartphones to challenge broadcast television as the dominant channel for media consumption. Compared to the 60-year-old television industry, apps are just over 4 years old.  In particular, tablets will drive growth in app consumption in 2013 as TV-style content and major programming moves to the tablet. Most TV Networks have already adjusted to a dual screen world and are synchronizing their TV content with their tablet app content.

This also explains why companies like Netflix, professional sports leagues, and companies built around entertainment content are focusing one “second screen” apps. They know you are, more than ever, probably using apps anyway while you’re watching TV — or even instead of.

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Pocket, which was founded in 2007, raised $5 million in Series B funding in July and had said it would use the money to expand to more platforms.

Pocket for Mac features include offline access to saved content, “instant syncing across all devices, keyboard shortcuts, viewing of streaming video, the ability to share found content, and great organizing and search features.”

The reading experience on Pocket for Mac is fairly similar to that on Pocket’s other apps. There are also a couple of new features: You can re-download an article if it hasn’t loaded correctly, or “report article view” if something continuously fails to render. And you can save articles from the clipboard or using drag-and-drop.

On its blog, the company notes, “To create the new Mac app, we tapped into Pocket’s developer community. Michael Schneider, the creator of the popular third-party Mac app Read Later, joined Pocket to help us create this official Mac version of Pocket.”

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Computerworld blogger JR Raphael and I realized this at roughly the same time. As I was testing a web-based game for a performance test, Raphael was checking Netflix. Neither of one of us was able to run our respective web apps: Netflix for him and Bastion for me. I wondered what the commonality was and came to the conclusion that both web apps rely on Google’s Native Client (NaCL) technology. This lets native apps run inside a browser with very little performance hit.

I figured NaCL was related as Netflix was originally one of the first NaCL apps for Chrome OS. And the error message when trying to run Bastion? “Native Client not allowed” is all I could get. Both of these apps run fine on the older Chromebooks powered by Intel chips. I did try going into the Chrome OS settings — type “about:flags” in Chrome to see these — and enabled all of the NaCL options, which are off by default. After a restart, Netflix still didn’t work, although I was able to get past the error message on Bastion. Unfortunately, it hangs at the splash screen.

I’ve reached out to Google with my observations to see if they will confirm my thoughts; if I’m right, I’d like to know when this issue will be resolved but it’s would probably be up to each individual web app maker. I’ll update this post with any response.

It appears that ChromeOS on ARM processors does support NaCL, but it’s possible — very likely, even — that the native code for Netflix, Bastion, and perhaps other web apps needs to be recompiled from x86 to ARM before they can run on Google’s newest Chromebook. Is this a major issue? For Netflix users, maybe, but I expect that very few web apps actually rely on NaCL just yet. Still, I’ll be a happier Chromebook owner once this situation is resolved.

Update: I heard back from a Google spokesperson who provided the following statement: “We are working to enable Native Client on the new Samsung Chromebook, and we will be working closely with app vendors to bring their NaCl-based apps over. The apps will automatically update as soon as they’re available.” With a new chip architecture for Google’s Chrome OS platform, there’s bound to be some transitional pain, but it looks like Google is well aware and working on it.

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The Dallas-based startup is doing this with the support of large publishers. The startup has already signed deals with Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Wiley, and is “finalizing” agreements with Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Hachette, along with other publishers. Ingram’s publisher clients can sign up directly or through Ingram.

A login workaround — not breaking DRM

BookShout founder and CEO Jason Illian explained to me — sort of — how the process works. The company’s app doesn’t break DRM on Nook or Kindle books. Rather, Ilian compared BookShout’s model to personal finance site Mint, which imports transactions from users’ bank accounts. Neither Mint nor BookShout relies on APIs (Amazon and Barnes & Noble don’t make their APIs public). Rather, to import books to BookShout users log in to the app with their Amazon or Barnes & Noble user name and password. The app verifies their purchases and then — if a consumer has bought a Kindle or Nook book from one of the publishers that BookShout works with — lets the user access the publisher’s version of the file through the app. These publisher files are protected by DRM.

“The great thing is, it’s just your book,” Illian told me, adding, “It’s not taking Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s sale. If you want to buy from them, great, keep buying from them.”

The advantage for readers is supposed to be the ability to integrate their ebooks with BookShout’s social reading capabilities — a goal that many startups have focused on, though it’s unclear that many readers actually desire these features.

The advantage for participating publishers, Illian says, is more data about their readers: “We want to be able to give information back to the publishers on how people are reading, where they’re shopping, what they’re sharing.” The Kindle and Nook book importing, though, doesn’t actually provide publishers with much information about their readers other than which platform they’ve bought a book on. Rather, BookShout’s hope is that publishers will choose to run promotions and let their authors interact with readers through the BookShout platform. BookShout is also selling ebooks directly — through its website, not its apps — and takes a cut of those sales. So far, most of the titles on BookShout’s website are Christian and religious titles from Thomas Nelson, which is now owned by HarperCollins.

“They said it was impossible”

It seems like only a matter of time before Amazon and Barnes & Noble shut down BookShout’s import function. “I think they’ll find us,” Illian told me, smiling. “I’ll be interested to see what Amazon thinks. My argument to them is, one, we’re not taking your sales, and, two, we’re not breaking any terms of service because we’re not taking any files from you. Will they try to shut it down? Maybe. Amazon is notorious for protecting their ecosystem. We’ll see how they react.”

What about Barnes & Noble? Illian leaned in close. “What do you think Barnes & Noble would do to have our technology?” he asked.

BookShout is ambitious — “They said it was impossible to import your books from Amazon and Barnes & Noble,” Illian bragged at Tools of Change Frankfurt Tuesday evening — but when I tested the import function through its iPad app (the function is not yet available on the BookShout website), it didn’t work at all for Kindle books. (I asked Illian about the problem in a follow-up email and was told that other users had been able to successfully import Kindle titles; as of this writing, BookShout was working to address my problem. but I wonder if Amazon has already moved to shut the function down.) The app appeared to login to my Amazon account successfully, but then I got a message saying “No books could be found to import.” (There are over 70 books in my Kindle account, including many from the publishers that BookShout says it is working with.)

The app was able to login to my Barnes & Noble account and showed the purchases I’ve made there, but because none of those purchases were titles from publishers working with BookShout, I couldn’t access them.

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The app allows users to consume content in a number of ways, including a trending section that lets people see what’s popular on Twitter from the past hour. There’s also an option to access TimesWire, a firehose feed of all the content on NYTimes.com in reverse chronological order. Users can also view today’s stories by topic headings or see across all of the sections of the Times.

The limited nature of the web app suggests it is just a way for the Times to test the waters of HTML5 as it continues to develop its native apps. But it is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. By launching a web app, the Times can avoid paying Apple’s required 30 percent cut for in-app purchases on subscriptions. It also helps the Times improve on its “NYT Everywhere” initiative, which aims to make NYT content available on third-party platforms. And it also makes sense in light of  new Pew data that suggests news consumers are using the web over mobile apps.

The move follows similar steps by the Financial Times, which abandoned its native iOS apps last year to focus on HTML5. There was speculation that other publications would follow the FT’s lead, though that hasn’t really happened in a big way. The Boston Globe last year launched BostonGlobe.com last year as a paid HTML5-based web app. The Times was quick to point out that it’s not looking to skirt Apple’s rules on subscriptions.

“We wanted to test the web app among an engaged audience of NYT subscribers, which made the iPad a natural choice. This is the first step, but the HTML5 format does allow us to explore the idea of launching Web-based apps other platforms in the future,” a Times spokesperson told the Verge.

The web app doesn’t have the performance of the Times’ native app, but it gives the Times more options as it considers how it wants to distribute its content and how consumers want to consume it.

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