Hi, I’m Arne, from the Chrome Web Store team. I’m here to talk about some of the
reasons we started working on the concept of web apps for Chrome, and the ways that
you as a developer can get started writing these apps.
The idea for a web store grew out of an observation that the way the web works has changed significantly
in the past few years. New standards such as HTML5 give developers more flexibility
in the types of experiences the web can provide. The pace of browser development has also sped
up, so these new features are shipped to end users a lot faster than they were in the past.
Developers have used these new features to write increasingly sophisticated sites. So,
the idea of a web site as a place to consume text-based content has become out of date.
Developers are writing websites to act as real-time email clients, listen to streaming
music, and play multi-player games - functionality that is traditionally associated with desktop
apps. Many of Google’s own services push the limits of what can be done on a web page.
Tools like Gmail, Docs and Maps are quintessential web “apps” that use the browser as an
application platform instead of a content renderer.
We believe that the web has reached a point where these kinds of apps are only going to
become more ubiquitous. We wanted to make the experience of launching an app quick and
direct, just like a desktop application. So we’ve retooled Chrome’s New Tab page
to display a list of your most commonly used apps as a series of big beautiful icons, so
that getting to the apps you love is as quick as possible.
A lot of the new HTML5 features like geolocation and notifications help make apps very powerful
but at the same time require explicit permission from the user. A complex app may need lots
of these features, which leads to a bad experience, if the user has to click on a bunch of approval
boxes before being able to use the app. To address this, we made apps require an explicit
“install” flow. When a user decides to install an app, they will be presented
with the permissions that the app requires in an easy to understand list. When they
approve the permissions, then the app will be installed to and launched from the New
Tab page. Finally, while we think Google search is the
best way to find sites on the web, we understand that users use many more metrics when selecting
apps to use. So we built the Chrome Web Store as a dynamic gallery. Users filter apps by
category, read reviews and ratings and even get personalized recommendations of apps to
try. The Chrome Web Store is integrated with the
Chrome browser, so it it easy to access directly from the New Tab page.
It also offers an integration with Google Checkout, so if an app requires payment to
use, the buying process is straightforward, without the user needing to input a credit
card for each purchase. One important point to note is that while
we added additional UI and functionality to support apps in Chrome, we didn’t add any
additional proprietary APIs or technologies to learn. Web apps in the Chrome Web Store
are built using the same standards-based tools that you would use to create any other website.
In fact, any website can be deployed as an app simply by filling out a simple manifest
file and uploading it to the Web Store. Apps that require payment can take advantage
of open technologies such as OpenID and OAuth to interact with our license server, or they
can use any other existing payment or user infrastructure if they wish.
The key difference, then, is more about how a web app should be designed, than how it
is built. We expect web apps to deliver a tight focus and a rich user experience.
In this sense a web app in the store should be more like a mobile application designed
for a larger screen, rather than a packaged installable website. And because apps can
use all of the features supported by Google Chrome, they can be fast, dynamic and powerful
without having to worry about legacy compatibility. Hopefully this video has gotten you excited
to try creating a web app of your own and posting it to the store. There’s an easy
learning curve to get started, and if you already use a developer channel version of
Chrome and have a text editor, you have all the software you need to get started. Just
visit code.google.com/chrome/apps to read tutorials and documentation on building apps.
Happy coding!