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A new breed of Chrome Apps

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Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#71

Post by eropple »

RivieraKid wrote: post #64
alexbell wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That language will be web, I suspect. Perhaps Google will offer prerolled components specifically for Android? I strongly suspect that Chrome is the platform Google wants to push for client development now, with Android essentially as a shell for it. While web may arguably be "worse" on Android now, Google has a very large, talented engineering team who could change that relatively fast. Java is a dead end at this po…

Web is a platform, so they would need to rewrite half of Android, I don't think it would be worth it, I don't see real benefits of that for users or devs... I think that Java 8 is a great language, I like it a lot more than Javascript. Go would be great too.

In all seriousness, I just want a C API. I like different languages for different purposes, but C is still the lingua franca. You can have your Go, I can have my C++, the next guy can have his Python.

As-is, native code on Android is a cluster, and even for games it's pretty uncomfortable and filled with Java shims. Kinda gross.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#72

Post by jonknee »

Spearchucker wrote: post #43
wwosik wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, Java Applets reborn

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

They run "on" Chrome, not in it. A separate icon, window, etc. You need to have Chrome installed, but it's different from ActiveX in that you're not going to see "plug-in missing" in the middle of a page somewhere.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#73

Post by michaelwww »

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?

It will be interesting to see where the Dart VM fits into this.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#74

Post by nabeards »

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…

They do work in the browser, but also do have some issues in Windows (especially XP). I provided bug information and offered any assistance possible, but got nowhere. We ended up rolling with a Qt WebView wrapper and I rewrote the USB calls. Haven't had any issues since.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#75

Post by guizzy »

tammer wrote: post #63

Brilliant that on win8 it sits in the taskbar, right where every Windows user expects a menu of applications.

That might be why Microsoft brought back the start button in 8.1

They might have been afraid that if they left this prime piece of desktop real estate, Google might take it.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#76

Post by mythz »

pjmlp wrote: post #54
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?

> The next milestone I expect to see is V8 added alongside Dalvik as a first-class runtime for Android. Maybe in Android KitKat? Something needs to change, since the Oracle lawsuit, Java/Dalvik features have been frozen without any new update being officially communicated.

This maybe an option in the making: https://code.google.com/p/dart/wiki/Android

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#77

Post by OlavHN »

Its really awesome to see Google taking the web seriously by giving it more access to hardware, but it would be nice with some indication of where these APIs are headed.

Are they "forking off the web" or just experimenting before standardising?

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#78

Post by derefr »

simonster wrote: post #13

Firefox has made stubs for web apps that can be launched directly from the desktop since Firefox 16 ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/Apps/WebRT ). I guess the difference here is more (Chrome-specific) APIs and better support for running offline?

Chrome has had that particular feature for just as long (look for "Create Application Launcher" in the menu; or right-click a regular chrome app, set its presentation to "Window", and click "Create Shortcuts".) This is a separate feature, about creating apps that don't appear to be "from" the web.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#79

Post by kolev »

Chrome is a resource hog. I don't want that on my phone, which barely lasts 4 hours idling in my pocket. Thanks but no thanks. On my Mac, Chrome with 20 open tabs is always using most of my memory and CPU.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#80

Post by pjmlp »

mythz wrote: post #76
pjmlp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next milestone I expect to see is V8 added alongside Dalvik as a first-class runtime for Android. Maybe in Android KitKat? Something needs to change, since the Oracle lawsuit, Java/Dalvik features have been frozen without any new update being officially communicated.

This maybe an option in the making: https://code.google.com/p/dart/wiki/Android

This is actually the only place where I see a future for Dart.
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