Google has announced what it describes as a “new” breed of native/web apps called Chrome Apps, which are essentially web apps that are programmed to look and work like desktop apps. Chrome Apps are currently only available on Windows and the Chrome OS, with a Linux and Mac OS X version in the pipeline.
To put it simply, they are like the many apps you find on the Chrome Web Store, but are programmed to function differently. These apps can work offline and in full-screen mode (without toolbar, navigation buttons, URL bar), store data locally, handle photos, videos and multimedia, send desktop notifications and can also interact with USB and Bluetooth-connected external devices. Google has also announced an app launcher for Windows, which lets users launch the new apps directly from their desktop.
This, if you remember, is not the first time we are hearing of such apps. A couple of months back in June we reported about some Chrome apps that could access a user’s multimedia content like music (iTunes included), videos and images off the computer using media Galleries APIs.
You can head over to the Chrome Web Store to download these new Chrome apps.
