Google launches tool that brings Chrome apps to Android and iOS

Chrome Apps have been available on Desktops for quite some time now and now these apps will be available on mobile phones as well.Google’s offline Chrome Apps are about to find their way to both 

Android and iOS.

 

Using Apache’s well-known open-source Cordova platform for turning web apps into native
apps.Google has released a developer preview of a tool based on Apache Cordova, an open-source mobile development framework for building native mobile apps. Developers can use this tool to wrap their Chrome apps into a native application shell that enables them to distribute it via Google Play and Apple App Store.

Developers can build their apps on standard web tools such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Google is already making wide variety of API’s (Application Programming Interface) available for developers. The tool will also support payments and rich notifications on Android. Developers will also have additional API’s available through Cordova itself.

How to?

  1-  First, developers will need to install Node.js version 0.10.0 or higher and a number of required development tools to get started.
  2-  After the app is built, they can run the app on a device or an emulator using the command line or an IDE. In case developers want to run the app on an Android device without the need to install the SDK or IDE, they use the Chrome Apps Developer.

Google is making a wide variety of Chrome APIs available for these apps, including ways to authenticate users using OAuth2, push messaging, storage and alarms. On Android, the toolchain also supports payments and rich notifications. In addition, developers also get access to the full range of APIs available through Cordova itself, which includes a wide range of services for every popular mobile platform.
For web developers, Google says, this new toolchain will give them an easy workflow “for extending the reach of Chrome Apps to users on mobile platforms.”