Google preparing an app store for Chromebooks

Google is seemingly preparing an app store for Chromebooks. Well, for ChromeOS, to be more precise. Its name is ‘App Mall’, based on what 9to5Google reported.

Google is looking to deliver an app store for Chromebooks

The source reports that the App Mall store will be locked behind a flag in Chrome. You know, the menu that you access via chrome://flags, where some unreleased and test features are located. That will be the case during early testing, at least.

Now, the ‘ChromeOS App Mall’ is mentioned, and this is the description: “Enables an app to discover and install other apps”. So this store’s goal is to help you discover and install apps. We wonder, though, what exactly will be included in there.

Chrome extensions are one thing, but we’re talking about apps here. Could Google finally bring Google apps and Linux apps under the same roof? Well, that may be pushing it, as Linux needs to be activated manually on Chrome OS, but who knows, we can always hope. Needless to say, that would be a great move.

The discover.apps.chrome website is also mentioned

In any case, the source reports that under the hood, the aforementioned flag will be just a shortcut to a soon-to-be-launched website discover.apps.chrome. You can’t access it yet, but you will be able to soon, presumably.

It’s safe to assume that both web apps and Android apps will be located in App Mall. That’s already a nice addition, but we would love to see Linux apps in there too. ChromeOS became a rather useful OS over time, and Linux apps are a big part of the reason why.

We can only guess at this point, of course. We’ll have to wait for Google to release some official info regarding all this. A dedicated app store for ChromeOS is something we’ve been waiting for for a long time. Let’s hope it will be done right.