14 DAY TRIAL // Google is slowly moving ahead with the next-generation packaged apps for Chrome. These are "true" apps, they can live in standalone windows, they work offline as long as it makes sense, and have access to some deeper functionality.
As far as Google is concerned, these are Chrome apps and not everything that came before them. And it's emphasizing that point by exposing them to dev channel users in the Chrome Web Store.
If you're running the dev channel Chrome or Chrome OS, you'll notice there's a new Apps section in the Web Store and that the old Apps section is now called Websites.
This is where you'll find everything Google used to call apps, both hosted apps, aka links to websites, and legacy packaged apps.
Google unveiled the next-generation packaged app API almost a year ago and has been working on it since.
It has only now gotten to the point where the apps built on this API are ready for the public and still only for dev channel users who are supposed to be more tech-savvy and more accustomed to bugs.
"Many of these apps are works in progress, which is why we're only making them easily available on Chrome’s dev channel. If you've written a packaged app, or are working on one, now is a great time to get some early feedback and polish your app before Chrome packaged apps become more broadly available," Google explained.
"A number of developers have taken advantage of the early preview to publish apps that demonstrate the new powerful capabilities of the packaged apps platform. If you're looking for inspiration, we've highlighted a few of them for you to try out in the Web Store’s Apps category," Google added.
If you do decide to install one of the new packaged apps, you'll be asked whether you want the desktop app launcher as well. This feature has also been in the works for a few months. Google recently added new icons for it to the Chrome binary in anticipation of this wider release for packaged apps.
