Applications designed to run in Google’s Chrome browser are nothing new. Last week, though, Google added a twist: they introduced a “For Your Desktop” section. Unlike other applications previously available in the Chrome Web Store, Chrome Apps are designed to work offline — and to work outside a browser.
Writers at The Verge and PCWorld have already written fairly extensively about Google’s move and what it might mean for the future of the Chrome platform, so I’ll refrain from offering comment on that here.
But I’ll note that the apps I’ve tried work as expected. I’ve played a bit with Pixlr Touch Up, and while it’s a very basic photo editor, it does what it’s designed to do, without fuss. Of more day-to-day importance to me, the Wunderlist app (Mark reviewed the other versions of the app last year) also does very well, behaving —as intended — as though it were a desktop application (Wunderlist is the app on the right side of the screen in the lead image). I could move the window around and resize it as I liked. When I restarted the app after quitting it, it remembered where on the screen I had it, and how I’d sized the window.
Admittedly, the new Wunderlist app’s behavior isn’t a huge change, but even small changes can be significant. In my case, being able to use the app without having a browser window open (which wasn’t possible before on a Chromebook) makes a difference, as does having offline access to my task list.
Chrome Apps are currently available only to Chromebook and Windows users, but Google’s promising to roll them out to Mac and Linux users soon.
There aren’t many Chrome Apps available just yet, but if you’ve found any that you like — or have thoughts to share about this kind of application —let us know in the comments.
[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by me.]