App Stores are designed to give users a great place to discover applications and give them an easy to way to purchase and install them. Great examples would include the iOS App Store, the Mac App Store, the Android Marketplace, and the Ubuntu Software Center.
The Chrome App Store is, in my opinion, the textbook example of how not to launch an App Store.
First off, all the “apps” are webpages- usually HTML5, but webpages nonetheless. In all honestly, they’re just less-sucky versions of websites (I’m looking at you, New York Times). And they more often than not work perfectly in other browsers that support HTML5- I’ve had almost no trouble when testing in Firefox. These apps aren’t platform-specific, nor are they actually applications- they’re overly-hyped links to HTML5 web pages!
Which is kind of okay, I suppose, as long as you know going in that they’re simplified web pages. But the big problem I have is this: the majority of the apps in the store are giant buttons that are nothing but a fancy bookmark to the normal webpage! I know you want to say that you’re “in the app store,” but people can add a bookmark. It’s really not that hard. And I’m not alone: here’s just a sample of reviews for the “Gmail App:”
The Chrome App store is supposed to give people a way to charge for their “apps,” but I’ve only found apps that use in-app payments (because they’re the normal websites!).
Not to mention the biggest fail: this was designed to give the Chrome OS the feeling of a more traditional operating system with standard, offline Apps. As of now, these apps are all designed for on-line use.
So it is my opinion that this is not an App Store: it’s a database of visually-improved websites and bookmarks with larger icons.
This was supposed to be a review, but it turned into more of a rant. Oh, well. It happens.