Andy Hertzfeld working on Google OS?

There's a short but sweet interview with Andy Hertzfeld over at Low End Mac. He doesn't really talk about his work at Google, but some interesting points are made. For one thing, it jogged my memory on General Magic, a company Andy co-founded with Bill Atkinson and Marc Porat. What, you don't remember the Sony PIC2000? The interesting part is General Magic's work on Telescript, which would allow a user to create apps across multiple devices, all connected via network. In fact, General Magic generated some buzz with it's Magic Cap OS, which was essentially a thin-client OS, and geared towards handheld devices.

Now that Andy is working over at Google, wouldn't it make sense to bring this expertise to bear on a Google OS? Imagine a GoogleScript language that allows a user to automate workflows across multiple machines... And you tie this in with the holy grail of the Semantic Web, bingo, a truly workable Web-based OS with all those nifty perks. Persistence of data, device-neutral applications and workflows... Nirvana, right?

Since Andy won't return my calls (at least, not on my imaginary Bat Phone), I don't really know what he's working on over there. But I'll leave you with a tantalizing quote from his interview and YOU can be the judge: "The personal computer itself will become less important as the user's computing world expands into dozens of different devices, all united by the network. The personal computer will continue to morph into more of a communications device than anything else." Now quit reading TUAW Andy and get back to it!