Unless you use Google Chrome you probably haven’t. Just like Google there weren’t any announcements either. Last week I powered up my web browser and instead of being greeted by screencaps of my eight most visited sites I see this instead:
except the only icon up there was the web store one. So I clicked on it and found myself here. Every morning now I find myself poking around the store. I’ve only found two or three apps worth installing and I refuse to pay for anything, but it has been fascinating just browsing through everything. Some of the highlights:
Dreams 2 – A high resolution spot the difference game! With the custom artwork of Stephanie Herrera. All this for only $1.99! I didn’t know people did these things still, or that they’d pay money to do them in a special tab on their browser.
Pandora – This app is just a link to the regular old Pandora website! A website that was in desperate need of a re-design when it was originally released back in 2007 or so. This is actually quite common it seems many of the ‘apps’ popping up in the store are just links to existing sites. I guess apps are the bookmarks of the twenty-first century?
Autodesk Homestyler – Let your inner consumer whore out and do some interior designer all from the comfort of your browser using real products! This is currently a featured app in the store. Beyond helping interior designers in the field with wireless capabilities I don’t see what this does besides feed consumer lust and neighbor envy.
Tweetdeck: The first app I installed. This app is just like the installable version of Tweetdeck. It turns a tab of your browser into a tweetdeck client letting you manage your social networking (twitter, facebook, buzz, and foursqaure) from one window.
Write Space: A distraction free text wrangler. Click the app and you’re dropped into a simple black screen and a text prompt. Get writing! I also installed this.
The store is only a few weeks old and it looks like it already has thousands of apps. I’m sure most of which are useless and/or garbage. I didn’t understand why Google even created the store at first, but with the announcement of ChromeOS and Google sending out Google laptops to testers… The store’s existence becomes clear.
Have any readers poked around in the store? Have you found and apps worth downloading and using? Let me know down in the comments.
Wow – I hope some of them will be available for the Android. I have good reason to think there will be an Android pad like an iPad by March, and our college might get me one when it comes out as part of our 2-year mobility initiative.
Even if not, I filled out Google’s application for a ChromeBook, begging most obsequiously.
I’ve seen on Lifehacker that you can get the Barnes & Noble Nook Color for around $200 or so and then hack it to be a fully functioning Android Tablet.
As for the Chrome laptop I also requested one if they were just handing them out.