Google’s Chrome is already the key feature of a range of products including Chromebook laptops and the Chrome OS, but these have failed to gain the success in the market which the company intended. According to Cnet, HTC will be developing their own Chromebook for next year that will feature the best parts of both Google’s software, Android and Chrome.

As Cnet explains this new hybrid product could take the form of HTC Shift, which they descried as having an over-sized keyboard, or it could be a laptop/tablet combination similar to the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime. It is also unclear how the two OSs would work with one another on the device. One of the suggestions was perhaps Android would be used for regular tasks and Chrome used for more complicated activities.

Electronics retailer is predicting big things for a device like this next year, saying they believe 10% of computers sold in 2012 will be Chromebooks, despite the poor sales these products have produced so far. Their optimism relies on getting the right manufacturer for the products, which will result in the correct hardware and more focus on the benefits for the consumers. Reports are also suggesting that if the device does turn out to be a Chromebook, in order for them to have success the price of it will have to drop to around $199 in order to attract consumers.

What do you think the new Chrome/Android OS product will be?

In a recent article at Computerworld, it was revealed that the Chrome browser is actually the third most popular behind Firefox and Internet Explorer, and is on the verge of overtaking Firefox in terms of popularity very soon. Current statistics show that Microsoft’s IE is the most popular by quite a significant amount, having a global average user share of 41.7%, while Firefox currently has a 26.8% share and Chrome is gaining with 23.6%.

Since the start of 2011 Google has seen their browser Chrome’s popularity increase by eight percent representing a 50% increase overall. As a commemoration of their popularity, if you like, the internet giants have opened their first physical Chrome tore called Chromezone. The store is located in Tottenham Court Road in London inside a Currys and PC World store.

The Chromezone store is Google’s experimental new way of selling its range of Chromebook laptops. Until now these laptops, which run on Google’s own OS, were only available to buy online, but their new strategy will allow customers the opportunity to actually see the devices before they buy them. According to The Telegraph, the launch of this store was ‘low-key’ when compared to the opening of Apple’s first London store back in 2004, which was extremely hyped.

What do you think of Google’s Chrome brand? Will you be visiting the store?

The future of the new service could end up being a bigger deal than Dropbox, simply because of the integration possibilities with Android and Chrome, well that’s according to TIME. There had been rumors that the new service should have already been launched, but was delayed to coincide with the release of Ice Cream Sandwich. There is certainly some merit to this, as Apple will be offering iOS users their new cloud storage service very soon, so makes sense for Google to do the same.

There are a number of instances where Google has not been able to offer a service first, which meant that they got left behind, so releasing Google Drive sooner rather than later has to be a priority for the company? However, it is the integration of Chrome that will be more valuable, as without cloud storage the Chrome operating system is dead in the water.

There are other solutions available, but why would Google want you to use a third-party when they have the ability to do it themselves? Also using these third-party services is not ideal, and you cannot do everything you would like to do, but you will be able to with Drive. We cannot be certain how Google would allow us to manage such a service, but it would make sense that we could access to it in one place, like we do with their other services, such as Gmail, Google+ etc.

There is no proof to suggest that Google Drive will ever be launched, but if they want us to take Chrome OS seriously, then they will need to offer their very own solution.

Something that I have noticed from some of our previous posts here and here is a number of people wanting to know about Google OS on desktops and what the support would be like. For the Chrome OS to be a success there are some things that we believe it really should have, these are as follows.

Reliability, it must be reliable so that it can compete with the likes of the iPad and Samsung Galaxy S, how often does the software crash on these machines? Virtually never. So for a netbook to have a realistic chance of survival they will have to ensure that the OS I absolutely solid or users will overlook them. We wouldn’t want to see the Google OS get Toyota syndrome now would we?

Geo-Location and remote erase, it would be a fantastic edition if they can add this. I don’t know if any of you have ever had your iPhone stolen or your android handset pinched but if you have, then you will be aware of the capability to find your device and if necessary wipe the data clean off via the web. It wouldn’t be difficult for this to be included when part of Google’s ideas are based around a cloud system.

Apple compatibility, what does the majority of the world use for its music? Apple devices, so somehow Google need to add the functionality of iPod and iPhone synchronization. They should already have Android synchronization available to them but this is an assumption. Head on over to pcmag.com where Michael Muchmore has written an article on more features he would like to see built into the Chrome OS.

If you want to try out the Google Chrome OS then you can head over to the new domain that it sits on by clicking here. Remember it’s a free download so no harm in trying it out.

What do you want to see from the Chrome OS that you feel are a necessity? Let us know in the comments below.