It’s clear that Google didn’t have a good plan from the start for ChromeOS. Its desktop operating system has evolved from a simple operating system based solely on working in a browser, to an operating system that can run mobile applications and now, to an “almost” fully functional Linux operating system. What it lacked, however, was a dedicated app “store”, having so far been based on stores developed for other platforms. Google is launching such a store soon and it is called “App Mall”.
App Mall is basically the third store of the ChromeOS platform. Originally, ChromeOS exclusively used the Chrome Web Store, the extension “store” for Google’s Chrome browser. From here you could download various extensions that are available on Chrome on several platforms, which mainly modify the browsing experience. However, these extensions have limited functionality and are often browser or internet dependent.
Then, Google decided to offer integration with the Google Play Store, its app store on the Android platform. Since both operating systems are based on Linux, running Android apps made sense. However, not all mobile apps provide a good user experience in a desktop environment.
The new App Mall for ChromeOS will aggregate all types of apps in one place
Thus came the need for a dedicated store for ChromeOS to unify all these types of experiences. The new App Mall is currently available in the “experimental” branch of ChromeOS “Cannary” starting with version 126. To enable the store, you need to enable a flag in your browser: chrome://flags/#cross-mall. Enabling this flag places the App Mall application in the operating system drawer.
The store looks like any other and is organized into several categories such as Communication, Creativity, Entertainment, Productivity and Other. Games are hosted in a separate category. Incidentally, there is also a direct link to the Play Store directly from the App Mall.
That’s because the App Mall won’t replace the Play Store, and the app search results it offers can vary from Android apps from the Play Store, web apps, which are basically shortcuts to websites, “progressive” web apps ( PWA) that use a hybrid between a native and a web application, or even native Linux applications. Depending on the type of application, you will be sent to the Play Store by the App Mall, or you will install the application directly from the App Mall.
All these types of applications already existed on ChromeOS and could be installed “manually”, but now the installation process is much simpler and intuitive, involving a simple click on the install button.
It’s unclear when the App Mall will come to the “stable” version of ChromeOS, but if it’s already in testing, the final version is probably not far off.
