14 DAY TRIAL // Google has finally brought the Snapseed photo editing app to the desktop. It did it in a rather slick way too, as there's nothing to install, not even a Chrome app.
All you have to do is visit the Google+ site, select one of your photos, and click the Edit button. You know, just like the web is supposed to work.
There's one caveat though – this only works in Chrome. Try to hit the Edit button in Firefox and you get a notification that you absolutely need Chrome for this. That's definitely not how the web is supposed to work.
This isn't just some ham-fisted attempt by Google to shove Chrome down your throat. Well, it is, but it's not only that, as Google has an excuse.
You see, the Snapseed editing features work exclusively in Chrome because they rely on Native Client. That is, the code behind the photo editor isn't JavaScript, which is understood by all browsers out there, but C/C++.
The code has been compiled into a Native Client binary executable which can run on any platform, i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux, but only inside Chrome.
The technology was devised as a way of bringing near native speeds to the web and as a way of porting large, complex native applications to the web.
So far though, Native Client has only been used for a few Chrome apps, mostly games. Technically, Native Client was designed to be deployed from the web as well, i.e. loaded by the browser on demand just like any other resource.
Until now, however, it hasn't actually been used like this for anything beyond experiments and demos.
The move signals that Native Client is ready. It's been in the works for a few years, but Google believes the technology is ready to tackle real problems and tasks. Which is all well and great, but it doesn't make it any better for Firefox users who now don't have any more editing capabilities in Google+.