Chrome Apps for iOS/Android, iOS In the Car Video

Google announced a new breed of Chrome apps that can work offline by default and like native applications a few months ago. These apps are available on desktop computers. But Google is planning to make them available on iPhone and Android devices. A new toolkit has been released for developers to allow them to develop Chrome apps for mobile devices:

Today we’re expanding their reach to mobile platforms with an early developer preview of a toolchain based on Apache Cordova, an open-source mobile development framework for building native mobile apps using HTML, CSS and JavaScript… The toolchain wraps your Chrome App with a native application shell and enables you to distribute your app via Google Play and the Apple App Store. We provide a simple developer workflow for packaging a Chrome App natively for mobile platforms. You can run your Chrome App on a device or emulator using the command-line or an IDE.

This is still a work in progress but developers will be able to release Chrome apps through the App Store and Google Play. The possibilities are simply intriguing especially if you know how to code.

We covered a few rumors about Apple’s iOS in the Car system a while ago. There is no secret that Apple has working hard to improve it. If you are still wondering how this system can change your experience in your car, you may want to check out this video by developer Steven Troughton-Smith:

The video description suggests that iOS in the Car will support multiple resolutions and touchscreens. Not surprisingly, multitasking is not supported for drivers. The system uses voice recognition as input. It is only white-listed to specific Apple apps. It will remains to be seen whether developers will get tools to take advantage of this system.