Re:Update from the CEO
by DigitalJack on Wednesday March 13, 2013 @02:47PM
(#5370291)
I can't even run chrome on my android (2.3). I've resorted to Firefox which is actually pretty nice.
Firefox for Android supports Froyo (2.2) up the latest Jelly Bean (4.2). Chrome for Android only supports ICS (4.0).
Re:Update from the CEO
by brian_cloutier on Wednesday March 13, 2013 @07:29PM
(#5371835)
Performance is part of the Chrome brand and supporting 2.3 would only serve to weaken that brand. It would also require a monumental engineering effort.
Can you be more specific? There is no reason for Chrome to use the platform WebView on any Android version supporting loading native libraries.
Are there OpenGL limitations or something else blocking Chrome from running on 2.3?
Doing hardware integration is a lot harder than writing an app. I wish more app developers recognized this.
(That said: I do think Google could have done a much better job at separating out the true kernel/HAL/BSP layer stuff, which needs to be done per-device, from the framework layers that are largely device-independent. There's no reason to force a full hardware test just to push an fix for the Intents framework or whatever).