Google has announced the release of the Chrome 29 beta, which brings a number of new APIs and developer features to the desktop and Android releases.
One of the listed web platform features is the resolution media query, which Google said enables designers to “tailor your CSS to specific pixel densities”.
This is something web developer and author Peter Gasston wrote about for Broken Links a year ago. Speaking to .net today, he thought that the introduction of the resolution media query feature in Chrome “is not by itself a huge game changer, but it is another step towards a cross-browser standard”.
He noted that Safari is currently lagging in support, “which is a shame and somewhat odd, because it’s been implemented in WebKit since late last year”. However, he added that you can use the proprietary -webkit-device-pixel-ratio media feature in Safari. Although, he said this is not as flexible as resolution “because it accepts only a single unitless value, whereas resolution works with dpi, dpcm, and dppx”.
Among the other changes that will appeal to developers are support for the Web Audio API and WebRTC on Android. Google’s blog post explained the goal of supporting Web Audio API is to “allow web developers to implement professional-quality audio production applications and modern game audio engines,” while WebRTC is designed to enable real-time communication in the browser.
