The one thing Chrome tabs have going for them is that they're oh so fast and smooth. I think tabs in Chrome are like the Dock for Mac OS X.
When OS X was first released, the Dock was an object of ridicule. (Among some of us, it still is, but we all realize that by now it's not going away.) It was demonstrably worse than previous mechanisms at just about everything, and it make OS X look like a toy. Eventually Tog[1] came around, sort of:
> Contrary to my previously-held position, I no longer believe Apple should get rid of the Dock. It's just too pretty [...] You want a visibly-apparent manifestation of the personality of the underlying technology. That's why automakers spend milliions making the outside of the car project an image of what's underneath the skin.
The supersmooth tabs in Chrome are probably a significant portion of what makes Chrome feel faster, even when it isn't. Like the Dock, their outrageously high demo value probably exceeds their limited scalability for more experienced users.
When OS X was first released, the Dock was an object of ridicule. (Among some of us, it still is, but we all realize that by now it's not going away.) It was demonstrably worse than previous mechanisms at just about everything, and it make OS X look like a toy. Eventually Tog[1] came around, sort of:
> Contrary to my previously-held position, I no longer believe Apple should get rid of the Dock. It's just too pretty [...] You want a visibly-apparent manifestation of the personality of the underlying technology. That's why automakers spend milliions making the outside of the car project an image of what's underneath the skin.
The supersmooth tabs in Chrome are probably a significant portion of what makes Chrome feel faster, even when it isn't. Like the Dock, their outrageously high demo value probably exceeds their limited scalability for more experienced users.
[1]: http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html