Of course, they were not perfect but IHMO made much more sense than what we have today, at least on a technical standpoint and could have evolved into something truly great.
> Of course, they were not perfect but IHMO made much more sense than what we have today, at least on a technical standpoint and could have evolved into something truly great.
Killing Chrome Apps isn't about abandoning what they enabled, it's about moving it from Chrome App-specific capabilities to web platform capabilities.
There are javascript+html+css apps that could use the Chrome API ( https://developer.chrome.com/apps/api_index ) which allow them to do more than regular javascript+html+css web pages.
There is no compilation.
Because of that, Google's suggested replacement of Android Apps (won't work everywhere Chrome does) or PWAs/Extensions (both heavily sandboxed) doesn't work.
NaCl was supported in Chrome Apps, but most Chrome Apps are just web apps using the chrome.* APIs, not NaCl.