Android 4.4 gives apps vastly better Web technology

Apps that draw upon the browser engine now have modern options like video chat and 3D graphics in Google's new KitKat release of Android.

Chrome for Android has been available for more than a year, but the improvements it offered over the operating system's more basic browser weren't available to developers who wanted to draw upon the browser's abilities for their own native apps.

Until now.

With the KitKat release of Android, Google updated a programming interface called WebView so it now employs Chrome instead of the earlier WebKit-based browser. That enables apps with many modern browser features such as WebRTC for real time audio and video chat, WebGL for accelerated 2D and 3D graphics, and a full-screen option.

The new WebView also brings "a dramatic upgrade of V8 for top-end JavaScript performance," which means a lot of browser-based apps should run faster, according to a blog post by Chrome team members Jonathan Dixon and Ben Murdoch.

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