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Chrome Apps Are Coming to iOS and Android


Until now, all the apps on your phone or tablet have been developed as a standalone package. However, Google is about to usher in the era of the Chrome app on mobile. These apps will be web apps at the core, but with a native applications shell encompassing them to they can be distributed via the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Google has announced an early developer preview of the tools required to do this, and app submissions could start immediately.


Google added offline support to desktop environments with Chrome apps last year, but now that capability is expanding. Many of the Chrome apps designed for desktop can easily be modified and wrapped in native code to bring the same experience to mobile. To the user, the apps should feel a bit like a very responsive web page built on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. However, they won't be opening in a Chrome tab-these apps work as standalone entities running on the Chrome rendering engine.


Chrome apps will not be as powerful as a regular native app. They will only be able to use the core Chrome APIs and APIs from the Cordova development framework. They will have access to your accounts, data connectivity, storage, push messaging, and a few more. This ought to be enough for a simple app to do its job, and it'll be a lot easier to develop.


On the user's side, the process of installing these apps should be the same as any other. People might not even realise the to-do manager they're using is actually a tiny webpage being rendered locally on the phone.


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