A few months ago, we announced the developer preview of Chrome packaged apps and the Chrome App Launcher. That preview enabled you to to upload your Chrome packaged apps to the Chrome Web Store and test the app install flow. However, a Chrome packaged app was discoverable only if you had a direct link to it, not via searching and browsing the store.

Starting today Chrome packaged apps will be available in the Chrome Web Store for anyone on Chrome's developer channel on Windows and Chrome OS. You will notice that the “App” category now contains only the new Chrome packaged apps. A new category, called “Websites”, contains all existing hosted apps and legacy packaged apps.

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Many of these apps are works in progress, which is why we’re only making them easily available on Chrome’s dev channel. If you’ve written a packaged app, or are working on one, now is a great time to get some early feedback and polish your app before Chrome packaged apps become more broadly available.

A number of developers have taken advantage of the early preview to publish apps that demonstrate the new powerful capabilities of the packaged apps platform. If you're looking for inspiration, we've highlighted a few of them for you to try out in the Web Store’s Apps category. If you’re not sure whether a Chrome packaged app is right for you, you can learn more at our developer site: developer.chrome.com/apps. As always, we welcome your feedback on our G+ Developers page or our developer forum.

Posted by Amanda Bishop, Product manager and (web) store keeper