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General discussion

What do yall think of the Chrome app store?

Dec 8, 2010 10:51PM PST

On the one hand I guess it makes sense as a single point of discovery of the more advanced websites that people may not otherwise know of. In that way its a really good idea. But its still essentially just a listing of links re-skinned to look like an icon.

But for the paid apps what exactly are they "selling". Access to a link? And if you are downloading small bits of code that gives you a more customized experience why not just use standard applications that can take advantage of each platforms strengths and work around its weaknesses while still having deep hooks into cloud data.

The insistence that everything has to happen inside a web browser seems so forced and unnatural to me. I know why Google's doing it... the more they keep you in your browser, the more money they make off of tracking everything you do and selling ads. But just because its good for Google does not make it good for the consumer. Not to mention, there are so many things that browsers just don't do well that OS's handles more elegantly.

I tried out a few of the free apps and the frankly the experience of using them felt clunky and jury-rigged. The NYTimes app looked a lot like the the iPads but was jerky and had horrendous typeface rendering.

Discussion is locked

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I haven't used it yet, but...
Dec 9, 2010 1:41AM PST

I have to agree with your general take on the platform. It does seem very forced. I like the thought of the cloud as an adjunct or option, but not the be all and end all of my experience.

I just don't understand Google sometimes. They've been brilliant in some ways but entirely off the mark in others. You'd think they'd have enough money to throw around not just to developers, but to strategists. Giant companies can surely be victimized by their own corporate ego. It's happened to Microsoft...and even Apple at times. Ponderous...

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My general take on Google is this:
Dec 9, 2010 3:00AM PST

They often have great ideas, but have no idea how to execute. And execution is everything. So you get a lot of half-@ssed projects that get abandoned after they lose interest or concepts that only an engineer with his or her head stuck in the clouds could think made sense to normal people. And since the corporate culture there doesn't get the importance of user interface design or product polish you get a lot of ugly stuff that is sort of useful but that just feels unfinished or strangely convoluted. Engineers do certain things well, but they aren't the best product designers.

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I think the problem is they are convinced the don;t need
Dec 9, 2010 3:06AM PST

strategists, or marketers, or UI experts, or product support specialists (my god they have the worst support ever). They are somehow convinced that engineering can solve anything and everything and that just one part of the puzzle.

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What do yall think of the Chrome app store?
Dec 10, 2010 6:55AM PST

Don't get it at all really why??????

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I dislike the trend towards everything web app
Dec 10, 2010 10:01AM PST

Devices and OSes are all different. When you design something to run on everything you end up with an app that is optimal on nothing.
A good desktop or mobile OS is built around a set of UI widgets and user interface guidelines and rules. So the user is always met with consistent apps that work the way they expect and are optimised for their device, ie touchscreen or mouse. And take advantage of all the built in features of the OSes UI kit.
That is the biggest problem. A secondary problem is HTML and JavaScript are a slower way to do most things. And forget direct access to hardware.

But a web app store? Maybe it could work and get people to even start paying for newspaper sites.
The point is, it is not a very good trend.

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I agree completely.
Dec 16, 2010 3:39AM PST

In my opinion, the code once, run everywhere mentality shows laziness on the part of developers who value expediency or adherence to an ideology over an a truly excellent product. Your job as a developer should be to produce great user experiences not shoot for the lowest common denominator amongst all platforms. Never have I seen this happen through runtime environments or web apps? ever (Adobe Air, Flash, Web apps.... they all leave a hell of a lot to be desired). They may be useful, but almost always they would be better experiences as a native app with hooks into the cloud.