A New Web Bundle Framework Will Help Developers Create Fast Native-like Web Apps
Web apps have, for as long as I can remember, played second fiddle to their native counterparts. Native apps are, for the most part, easier to work with. They are easily transferable and get the job done even during situations where you don’t have access to the internet.
These advantages have made a wider adoption of web-based applications slow but Google is vying to change that with the introduction of a set of developer tools geared towards making web apps load faster.
Progressive Web Apps laid the foundation and Google seem to build upwards from there.
The company introduced a bundled framework that it says will allow developers to create and inject fast-loading web apps and will the help of context indexing and background syncronizing, the apps will cache data in real-time making sure access to them is possible even without internet.
This could create several possibilities and the company said web apps could be distributed through any medium including thumb drives mimicking the easy transportation of natively created programs.
Chromebooks will eventually be the big winners here should developers truly embrace these new tools. In the future, getting a web-based app to run your Chrome OS-powered device won’t require downloading from the internet.
There are two avenues to gain access to these tools for those looking to experiment with them. The Web Bundle Framework is currently only available through an experimental flag in Chrome, however, background syncing and content indexing can only be access through what is called “origin trials.”
