“Data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions,” Mr. Bowman wrote.

Google is unapologetic about its approach.

“We let the math and the data govern how things look and feel,” Marissa Mayer, the company’s vice president of search products and user experience, said in a recent television interview.

One thing to think about: think about what they’re not saying about Chrome. This will be more of a Mozilla killer than anything Microsoft ever thought about putting out….and that’s a good thing.

Also, if they’re developing on WebKit, then the apps will work on Android and possibly the iPhone