Chromebook users are set to get a single central hub to download apps and games for their devices, meaning they won’t have to worry about where to find the various diverse applications they might want.
Whatever app you might want to download – whether it’s Android, Linux, or a Progressive Web App (PWA – think of these as websites turned into apps) – you’ll be able to get it from the App Mall.
As Chrome Unboxed reports, the App Mall in ChromeOS will let users explore apps outside Google’s Play Store, allowing them to get deeper into customizing their laptops and doing more on their Chromebooks.
A common complaint many people have when it comes to switching to ChromeOS is that they’re often constrained to the Play Store, and hunting for apps outside of that can feel like a taxing experience.
So, the idea with the App Mall is that whatever you want in terms of all the above-mentioned software, you’ll be able to get it in one convenient location. So, this is pretty exciting news! And more people may be tempted over to ChromeOS given this easy way of accessing a lot more apps.
The App Mall is currently available to preview, and you can try it out by enabling the flag “chrome://flags/#cros-mall” in the Canary channel of ChromeOS 126. The App Mall icon will then be added to the app launcher.
Chrome Unboxed dropped a video on YouTube showing off the new app hub and it works pretty much as you’d expect. Once you find the app you want it’ll show you screenshots, and reviews, and let you pick which source to download the app from. It seems like currently in preview you can only download Android apps, but obviously, that’ll change as development progresses toward an official release.