

The Next Evolution of Chrome Apps - lundreas
https://developers.google.com/events/io/sessions/gooio2012/200/

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bengoodger
Aside from the things mentioned in the video (offline by default, fully
customizable UI, <browser> tag etc) one of the most interesting things about
this is the change to application architecture that makes Chrome apps mirror
traditional native apps in an important way - the View is no longer the
instance.

A challenge for a variety of apps built using the traditional web container is
that the view is the instance. This poses challenges for apps that are mostly
invisible, like chat apps. The main challenge is sharing live state between
running instances. You can attempt to share state between views you open via
script but when the user inadvertently launches another instance by clicking a
link or typing a view all bets are off.

With this new system, your app has a background page that acts as the app's
instance - the entry point and core event receiver, it is effectively ever-
present (or can be woken by events) and can manage the app's various views.

I think this is an important and useful development that will allow a new
class of apps to be more easily built using web technologies.

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rsanchez1
I hope packaged apps start gaining more traction. It seems that the majority
of apps in the Chrome Web Store are just glorified bookmarks. Few are packaged
apps. Hopefully, as packaged apps grow in popularity, Google will develop
features for the Chrome Web Store to help developers better sell their apps.
One thing I've personally been waiting for are promo codes for developers to
give to reviewers or to gain visibility for their apps by growing install
numbers.

