The Chrome team has announced that Android System WebView has been updated to 44.0.2403.90 to improve performance on Nexus 9 and other Tegra-based devices with NVIDIA's K1 architecture.
Google has published an app that could update the functionality without waiting for an Over-the-Air update which was known as the Android WebView app. This app has been updated to 44.0.2403.90 version and users can now testify how productive the app is. This release brings new JavaScript APIs like Service Workers, and Battery Status.
The updated Android WebView tool specifically supports the Nexus 9 and any other Tegra-based devices with NVIDIA's K1 GPU engine which makes it easy for apps to display web content without opening a browser.
The new update of Android WebView App will be available in Google Play for devices on Android 5.0 and higher. This release includes support for ES6 computed property names and the unprefixed Encrypted Media Extensions API (an embedded media tool).
It also includes performance improvements for Nexus 9 devices as well as stability and security fixes. Other changes aim to fix certain crashing behaviors and provide a handy method for programmers to define a pattern that can create names at the runtime.
In Android 5.0 (Lollipop), the WebView has moved to an APK so it can be updated separately to the Android platform. Moreover, The WebView app will auto-update for mobile devices with Android Lollipop and above.
However, moving WebView app to the Google Play Store allows Google the access to update it right away as it is not able on sending out Android system updates to non-Tegra-based devices. Chrome for Android is separate from WebView. They're both based on the same code including a common JavaScript engine and rendering engine as explained by Chrome.
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