[wccrawford]

And by 'app distribution' they mean 'a link to a website'. -sigh-

Google asked for this, so I can't blame the companies that take advantage of it, but I really wish Chrome apps were just apps that installed in the browser instead. Offline-able preferred.

[rscott]

But offline is kind of what Google is pushing against with Chrome OS, so seems that would be contrary to their goals.

[CrazedGeek]

Except that, given that offline support will be reintroduced into Google Docs sometime this summer and that Chrome Web Apps actually do have offline support, they're doing a pretty bad job of that.

[stanleydrew]

What do you mean by "apps that installed in the browser instead"? Instead of what? Instead of being web-apps?

[wccrawford]

There are 2 ways to publish on the chrome web store.

1) A link to a website, with the link hidden. Going to the actual website provides the exact same experience.

2) A packaged app that is downloaded and contained within the browser. (It may or may not use a web API for some functionality.)

#1 is basically just a bookmark. There's nothing special about it.

[jent]

In my mind, there isn't much difference technically the big question is whether users want a different experience. A certain percentage want a more fluid user flow similar to a native / desktop app. This web app seems to accomplish that using Google web toolkit and decent page load times.

[jackpine]

The fact that "linked" apps have access to unlimited caching is a huge win for user experience.

[stanleydrew]

Right, but since Chrome's app environment is really just the browser's javascript and rendering environment (perhaps with access to a few special javascript apis) there isn't really anything special about #2 either. In fact, apps that fit into your #1 and #2 bins are the same thing modulo caching.

[snaky]

Apps using browser as runtime environment, they may or may not be web-apps itself. See XULRunner. And http://pencil.evolus.vn for example.

[stanleydrew]

I don't think a XULRunner-like environment has ever been on the Chrome roadmap though. Chrome's been pretty consistent in its intention to expose only v8 + webkit as its extension and app environment, although things like native client are blurring this somewhat.