A new breed of Chrome Apps • Hacker News Board

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#41

Post by RivieraKid » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 5:54 PM UTC

alexbell wrote: post #35

RivieraKid wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Android dev I can tell you this isn't happening in the next 5 years. They may add Chrome apps to Android, but it will be a niche option that won't be used by anybody. My utopic wish is a new open platform that will combine strengths of the web and of operating systems (Windows, Android): - Web: Great for documents, which it was originally designed for. Automatic updates. No installation. You can "fork" an app /…

Why not? What if the apps are purchased seamlessly through the play store and can run on Android or in Chrome? I have a feeling they will add more and more Android device APIs to whatever is coming, until it has just as many as the Java APIs. I've thought for the past year or so that there is no way the future of Android app development is Java/Dalvik.

That's possible today - there are apps, that are basically web apps. But they usually offer inferior user experience. It's cheaper, but for the price of being worse than a native app.

It's possible they will add support for other languages besides Java. Android is stuck with Java 6, which sucks...

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#42

Post by danvoell » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

cassidysummers wrote: post #18

It would be nice if the apps they recommended (wunderlist) actually worked. I have attempted 5 times to "sign up" for the wunderlist app, every time I hit the button the app freezes on the load screen. Not once has it made it past. I also have not received one email verifying my attempt to sign up. My first experience with app launcher and one of the apps would be horrible. Better get on the ball if you really wanna…

I encountered the same issue.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#43

Post by Spearchucker » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

wwosik wrote: post #9

trimbo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like they open up APIs that otherwise wouldn't be exposed, like access to the shell and devices.

Cool, Java Applets reborn

More like ActiveX components reborn, because these things will only run in Chrome. Much like ActiveX only ran in IE.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#44

Post by jtemplin » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 5:59 PM UTC

United857 wrote: post #39

Are these apps supposed to be written in pure JS or are they PNaCl (Portable Native Client -- basically LLVM bytecode)?

The vast majority are currently write in JS.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#45

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 5:59 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #26

RivieraKid wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Android dev I can tell you this isn't happening in the next 5 years. They may add Chrome apps to Android, but it will be a niche option that won't be used by anybody. My utopic wish is a new open platform that will combine strengths of the web and of operating systems (Windows, Android): - Web: Great for documents, which it was originally designed for. Automatic updates. No installation. You can "fork" an app /…

Why, as an Android dev, do you say that?

[deleted]

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#46

Post by RivieraKid » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 6:01 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #36

RivieraKid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, as an Android dev, I understand that both platforms have different strengths. Merge of the android and chrome/web platform, that would keep the strenths of both, is basically impossible. So the only possible scenario is making interative improvements to the chrome/web platform. But: 1) That would break backwards compatibility with Android apps. They would basically have to kill Android and replace it with Ch…

Merge of the android and chrome/web platform, that would keep the strenths of both, is basically impossible. Why do you say that? Add some APIs to the Android browser, allow it to open apps full-screen... there doesn't seem to be much more to it than that.

They would basically need to recreate the Android API in the browser if they wanted Chrome apps to be as good as native Android apps. So Chrome OS would become a virtual machine emulating the Android platform.

Right now, it's quite easy to package a web app into an Android app. But users generally dislike that.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#47

Post by bsimpson » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 6:01 PM UTC

pspeter3 wrote: post #6

alexandros wrote: post #3

Prediction: The much-anticipated convergence of Android and Chrome is near. These new Chrome apps are the programming model for the upcoming native Android webapps The next milestone I expect to see is V8 added alongside Dalvik as a first-class runtime for Android. Maybe in Android KitKat?

That actually makes a lot of sense given their Android KitKat tagline which is "It's our goal with Android KitKat to make an amazing Android experience available for everybody." Google has used Play Services to update Android in the background. Since they also own Chrome, the more apps that live within Chrome the more apps are up to date and out of reach of other companies who would use Android for them, notably Amaz…

It also means that many of these apps won't be usable by anyone running Android pre-4.0. Chrome launched with GoogleTV on Android 3, and that version doesn't auto-update, so it won't get apps.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#48

Post by fidotron » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 6:02 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #36

RivieraKid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, as an Android dev, I understand that both platforms have different strengths. Merge of the android and chrome/web platform, that would keep the strenths of both, is basically impossible. So the only possible scenario is making interative improvements to the chrome/web platform. But: 1) That would break backwards compatibility with Android apps. They would basically have to kill Android and replace it with Ch…

Merge of the android and chrome/web platform, that would keep the strenths of both, is basically impossible. Why do you say that? Add some APIs to the Android browser, allow it to open apps full-screen... there doesn't seem to be much more to it than that.

That's really not too different from what it takes to package HTML5 code into Android apps already, with the same result of apps with UIs that feel foreign to the system.

The trend is not towards HTML5, but actually away from it. Quite honestly the Chrome Mobile team are swimming against the tide on this.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#49

Post by nswanberg » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 6:03 PM UTC

United857 wrote: post #39

Are these apps supposed to be written in pure JS or are they PNaCl (Portable Native Client -- basically LLVM bytecode)?

Whatever runs in Chrome. Wunderlist uses javascript, while Cracking Sands uses NaCl. Though the apps run in their own windows, opening chrome://inspect in the main Chrome window lets you examine the various open apps.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#50

Post by nraynaud » Thu, Sep 05, 2013, 6:03 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #38

One thing that I think is really cool about Chrome Apps is that you can write USB drivers in Javascript that will run on any platform that runs Chrome or Chromium. This means that if you want to make a hardware device that syncs with the cloud, all you have to do is write what is essentially a web app, and anyone with Windows, OS X, Linux, or Chrome OS can use your thing. I'm personally working on a Chrome SDR app fo…

yeah, same here, I'm writing a CNC controller, the UI is a google chrome packaged app talking on USB.

it's a pain to use, with all the restriction, the buggy API (it doesn't crash, it just hangs, you can't investigate) and the browser bugs (I have to use a canary for development, I'm really far from a release).