That was fast: Chrome Apps ready to go mobile

The cold, hard walls between
mobile native apps and
HTML5 wobbled a bit on
Tuesday morning, as Google
announced that Chrome Apps
will now work on the two
most popular mobile
platforms.
Chrome Apps are HTML5-
based single-serving
applications, more than just a
mere Web site, that will work
on Windows, Mac, and
Chrome OS without having to
open your browser first.
However, because they're
based in Chrome and can't
function without it, they've
been criticized for "breaking"
the Web.
Google opened up a
developer preview of the
Apache Cordova "toolchain"
for wrapping Chrome Apps in
code native to Android and
iOS. It's not perfect, but it lets
developers more easily attain
the Holy Grail of writing code
once and publishing
everywhere. After using
Cordova, app makers will be
able to publish their apps to
Google Play and the Apple
App Store. Google first
revealed that mobile support
for Chrome Apps was coming
at the end of last year.
Google software engineer
Andrew Grieve said that the
Cordova toolchain "provides a
simple workflow for extending
the reach of Chrome Apps to
users on mobile platforms."
Cordova lets developers write
apps in HTML5, CSS, and
JavaScript, then wraps the
app in the native coding
languages for iOS and
Android, connecting APIs from
HTML5 to the native code as
best it can. Since it's only
being released as a developer
preview right now, developers
can expect improvements in
Cordova.