R
Robert Nazarian
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Last September, we saw the birth of Chrome Apps that work offline on the desktop. At that point, we knew it was a matter of time that Chrome Apps would come to Android and iOS devices. Then last month, it was predicted that it could happen this month. Well Google just announced an early developer preview of a toolchain based on Apache Cordova, which is an open-source mobile development framework that can be used for building native mobile apps using HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
Using this toolchain, Chrome Apps will be wrapped with a native application shell that allows them to be distributed in either the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. Google provides a developer work flow for packaging your Chrome App. Chrome Apps can be run on a device or emulator using the command-line or an IDE. You can also use the Chrome Apps Developer Tool to run your app on an Android device. Many of the core Chrome APIs were also made available for mobile versions of Chrome Apps.
As I mentioned, the toolchain is in developer preview mode, similar to what Google is doing with the Chromecast, so don’t expect to see a bunch of Chrome apps in the Play Store for a bit. Expect a lot of talk about this at Google I/O.
This is pretty significant news because this could very well be the future of mobile apps. Developers can create apps that will work on Android, iOS, as well as the desktop without the need to create separate versions. The question is if Apple could or would somehow curtail this effort?
source: Google / more info: Apache Cordova / Developer Workflow
Come comment on this article: Chrome Apps coming to mobile devices using new toolchain based on Apache Cordova
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