“Google yesterday launched its new packaged apps, dubbed ‘Chrome Apps,’ for the Mac, making good on a promise from September when it kicked off testing,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld. “Chrome 31 for OS X, released three weeks ago, now supports Chrome Apps, Google’s souped-up, cross-platform Web apps that are much closer to “native” software, the kind written for a specific operating system, like Windows or OS X. Chrome Apps can run without an Internet connection and call on several Google APIs and services barred to traditional website-based apps.”
“Written in HTML5, JavaScript and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), Chrome Apps also look more like a native application since they run in a bare-bones frame minus any browser ‘chrome,’ like the address bar, toolbar and menus,” Keizer reports. “Chrome OS and the spin-off Chrome Apps have a tough row to hoe, analysts have said. ‘To go consumer mainstream, Google will have to radically add off-line capabilities to Chrome OS,’ said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, in an interview yesterday. Chrome Apps have another problem: App inventory.”
Keizer reports, “Currently, there is just a handful of Chrome Apps in Google’s Chrome Store, the app distribution channel for the packaged apps.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, um, no.
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Google offers Chrome Apps to Mac users – December 11, 2013