Google ditches Native Client for mobile devices

Yesterday, Google scrapped an effort to bring its Native Client programming technology to devices using ARM processors -- in other words, just about every tablet and smartphone on the market today.

Native Client, aka NaCl, is a software foundation that lets programmers create or adapt C or C++ software so it runs in a safe compartment within a browser. Its goal is to let browsers download compiled software such as games from Web pages, a high-speed alternative to JavaScript-based programs that prevail today on the Web.

Part of that speed boost comes from the fact that Native Client programs execute directly on a computing device's hardware. For most desktop browsers, that means x86 processors from Intel or AMD, and that's where NaCl got its start. But Google had been working on a version called PNaCl for the ARM family of chips that power iOS, Windows Phone, and Android devices.

Yesterday, Google unceremoniously pulled the plug on the effort, marking it with a "won't fix" label and saying "other approaches are being used."

The move isn't a big surprise given Google's approach with Chrome for Android, which shuns browser plug-ins such as Native Client or Adobe Systems' Flash Player. And despite Google' enthusiasm, Native Client isn't a common approach to Web programming; only Chrome supports it, and most programmers don't use it. Finally, on Android, applications already can run natively on the device's hardware because Google has released a Native Development Kit that lets Android apps use computing hardware directly rather than relying on the higher-level Java-like Dalvik environment.

"The mobile ecosystem is different," said Dave Burke, an engineering director at Google, in an earlier interview. "We will use the Native Development Kit and write code there."

But the move does have implications for Web apps beyond just those running in Chrome on Android.

For one thing, any Chrome OS devices using ARM chips won't be able to use Native Client. And Chrome OS devices can only run Web apps.

For another thing, Chrome running on any ARM-based Windows 8 machines also won't be able to use NaCl apps.

NaCl is hardly a dominant force among developers. But game programmers in particular, who have written software in C and C++, have released several Native Client-based videogamessuch as Wolf Toss and Bastion through Google's Chrome Web Store.

For those who want an alternative, one option is the Emscripten project that can convert native code to JavaScript.