Yesterday, Amanda Walker, a Google software engineer, laid out some of the basics on the Official Google Mac Blog.
While individuals who excel at Mac development are building the Mac version of Chrome (and Linux developers are focusing on the Linux version), the different platforms are not operating on different teams -- everyone is part of the same group and working off of the same Chromium source tree.
As I discussed earlier, Chromium is available for developers to build on OS X -- the UI layer does not exist right now, but you can run tests in the TestShell.
When it comes to a release date for either Mac or Linux, Amanda won't give an estimate. In the blog entry, she writes, "we're not setting an artificial date for when they'll be ready--we simply can't predict enough to make a solid estimate." Fair enough, though obviously lots of Mac and Linux fans hope that it is sooner rather than later.
More details, at least about who is working on the Mac version, have also started to emerge. Mike Pinkerton, the project leader for Camino, posted in his blog that he is working on the Chromium project as a Mac developer. For anyone unfamiliar with Camino, it is a native OS X Gecko browser. Think the rendering engine of Firefox 2, with the interface and Cocoa-goodness of Safari. Up until FireFox 3, Camino was pretty much the only Gecko-based browser I used on my Mac. Interestingly, Pinkerton's former co-lead on the Camino project, Dave Hyatt, currently works at Apple on the Safari and WebKit teams.
Knowing how successfully the Camino team adapted Gecko to OS X, this gives me a lot of confidence in Chrome for OS X.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-03-2008 @ 6:37PM
Rick said...
But will Chrome for Mac be a Cocoa app? I will only use a browser that fully supports Mac Services. If not, I'll be sticking with Safari.
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9-03-2008 @ 7:13PM
Suomynona.Eno said...
@Rick
Acceptable stance in my book really. It'll be a backfiring thing to do if it were built to exclude Mac Services. On another note more related to Linux side, I'm thinking that the vast pool of talents should (if not could..) somehow redirect ample creativities to bring Chrome for Linux into fruition in good time. Preferably something more along the lines of the standard desktop environs in terms of looks and functionalities.
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9-03-2008 @ 7:35PM
Christina Warren said...
@Rick -- no word yet. However, I am cautiously optimistic since Pinkerton is involved.
@Suomynona -- I agree with you totally, it would be great for the Linux side for all the talents to start working to get something together and to keep the UI inline with existing standards.
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9-03-2008 @ 11:13PM
michas_pi said...
This will be an OK browser to use but I think I will stick with Firefox on my Mac. I tried Chrome in Windows XP and it was alright. Nothing revolutionary.
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