The photo editing app, Pixlr shown working as a packaged Chrome app.

The most substantial criticism that could be lobbed against Chromebooks has been there are very few apps for the system that can be used offline. Most of the “apps” for Chromebooks are, in fact, actually just websites. The Chrome Web Store is full of apps that you give you big icons and sometimes include special splash screens for Chrome, but essentially, they are just bookmarks for the browser. However, that is about to start changing. The new Chrome Packaged Apps, found in the For Your Desktop section of the Chrome Web Store has apps that work outside of the browser. The apps download to the computer, work offline and are able to use more of the computer’s hardware such as the bluetooth and USB connections. Right now, the Packaged Apps only work on Windows and Chromebooks, but Mac and Linux support is being developed. Unfortunately, these apps will not work in Android or iOS as both mobile platforms prevent apps from running inside other apps.

For more on this story, check out Seth Rosenblatt story at CNET: New Chrome Apps take the Web out of the browser.