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Google Launches Chrome Apps for Mac

Konrad9 said:
Only a few things available right after a service launches? Shocking! Almost as if it takes times for the full suite to get ported over.

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If you don't think Apple does it, you're fooling yourself.

Note that I did not in any way, shape, or form defend what Google does.
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I don't know dude, Apple doesn't make a lot of money off iAd. Almost all of googles earnings are from ads.

Heck I've never actually seen an iAd that new really obscure things about my browsing history. With the Goog if I visit a site, bam I get an ad for a product related with it.
 
Northgrove said:
With Google Chrome and this, Google essentially now has released Chrome OS for Mac. But I agree. If there only was some killer app for the web out there... I still consider them largely lightweight and usually feature-limited versions of native apps for Mac.
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Oh, good. Now I don't even have to consider not getting a ChromeBook.
 
This is just another HTML5 wrapper for webapps. This adds no value as far as I can see.
 
ricosuave said:
What's the difference between these "apps" and loading the url icon to the dock?
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They run offline and have local storage so they're basically like a normal desktop application that is just launched through Chrome.
 
Google has a long and strong history of creating new projects, letting the public become dependent on them and then trashing the project, discontinuing it so you loose your functionality and data.

Avoid like the plague.
 
I'm continually looking for ways to remove Google from my life. Finally adopted Opera as my primary browser because it uses the same great Webkit rendering engine that I enjoy from Safari without Safari's flakey behavior. Plus, the built-in click-to-load Flash player is better than the other add-ons that I've tried.

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Parasprite said:
Can't you already run offline with local storage in HTML5?
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Yes, but sites need to be written to support HTML5 LocalStorage. My understanding is that these Chrome apps use that by default, it's not optional. It's part of their fabric.
 
pubwvj said:
Google has a long and strong history of creating new projects, letting the public become dependent on them and then trashing the project, discontinuing it so you loose your functionality and data.

Avoid like the plague.
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I thought google let users export data and gave ample notice
 
If anyone wants it and is unsure how to get it just download one app from the web store and you get the launcher in the dock with all your wonderful google apps.
 
Why would anyone want this on their computer? It doesn't even matter if ur using linux, osx or windows, all native apps are way better than these html5 apps.

And then again, why would anyone want anything from google on their computer anyway? Chrome? Thanks but no thanks. Chrome Apps? Lol? What's next, google widgets on my desktop? Then again, I really don't care. They can publish what they want, but I really don't see any point in these apps.
 
Love how 9/10 of the comments here are about how google is evil, vile, and this app is crap. Typical of this site when Google is mentioned. I don't even know why I read the comments on a topic involving google anymore. I know what in going to read before I even load the page!
 
mrsir2009 said:
To be honest I don't really get why having web applications as native apps is much of an advantage... It's like having a Macrumors application and a New York Times application and a X-website-that-you-visit-frequently application on your Mac - why not just visit these in a browser?
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Because native apps can do so much more than HTML, CSS, Javascript allows....

Lets take for example Apple's native Mail app... vs accessing mail from iCloud.com .... the native app has so many more features, and you don't have to be tied to a web browser to be reading your mail.

Or for example Microsoft World Native app VS Google Docs online. Google docs has some collaborating features, but besides that, the native app can do so much more than Google Docs could ever do.

Native apps just work better, because it lifts the restrictions that programmer have. The main one being that creating a Web App takes a lot of tweaking, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Opera, FireFox.. all have different standards for how they read HTML and CSS.... Now think about how IE has like 9 versions, and every person might not be running the current up to date version. No web browser supports 100% HTML 5... they all pick and choose what they support. When you program a native app, you know exactly how your app is going to be rendered.

Just keep in mind there are 30 versions of Chrome, 25 versions of Firefox, IE 6 - IE 11, 18 versions of Opera, Safari has 7 versions... and now that is just desktop versions... with the mobile market, all those browsers have limited capability mobile versions...

Go play around with http://html5test.com and see how many versions of browsers there are for mobiles and desktop... Now think about how hard it is to make your web app work on all of them.
 
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coolfactor said:
I'm continually looking for ways to remove Google from my life. Finally adopted Opera as my primary browser because it uses the same great Webkit rendering engine that I enjoy from Safari without Safari's flakey behavior. Plus, the built-in click-to-load Flash player is better than the other add-ons that I've tried.
Click to expand...

Opera doesn't use Webkit. It uses Blink which Google forked off Webkit.
 
Konrad9 said:
If you don't think Apple does it, you're fooling yourself.

Note that I did not in any way, shape, or form defend what Google does.
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Follow the money.

Yes, Apple does collect very limited and anonymous data, which they make clear--and let you choose to opt in or out very easily. Example: detection of traffic jams for iOS Maps. It's a useful and legitimate tool for both Apple and Google.

But Apple's income is founded on happy users becoming return customers.

Google's customers are advertisers. Users are what's for sale! Their income depends on collecting personal info to make ads worth more.

Google's incentive to collect more data, less anonymously, build profiles, and make it hard to know what's collected, is far greater. Their history bears this out. They touch the creepy line often, and occasionally cross it. Very different behavior from Apple.
 
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