The Chrome Web Store is one of the nicer things about Google’s browser that really gives it an edge over the competition. Mozilla will be launching its own Firefox app store soon and Windows 8 has the Metro app store. Google is going to have to kick it up a notch to stay ahead.
In the spirit of staying ahead, Google has announced three new features hitting the Chrome Web Store today. The new features should benefit both the consumer and the developer in creating and delivering content across the Web.
The Chrome Web Store is now available in six additional countries – Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. Consumers in these countries can now start to download apps. The bigger benefit, however, comes in the form of developers from these countries being able to sell apps on the Chrome Web Store to a global audience.
One of the nice things about the Chrome Web Store is that some developers allow their apps to work offline. A major problem arose in the form of not knowing which apps worked offline though. To combat this, Google has added a special collection called “Offline Apps.” Developers can easily add their apps to this collection by adding the offline_enable flag to their app’s manifest file.
The final feature is for developers only and it’s a good one at that. The developer dashboard now features a graph that shows you how many times an app has been viewed versus the number of installations. In typical Good Guy Google fashion, developers can already view up to 90 days of history via the graph. That history will probably be increased in the future according to Google.
Like I said, these features benefit both the consumer and the developer. While Mozilla and Microsoft still have some work to do on their respective app marketplaces, Google has the head start. That puts them into the enviable position of being able to immediately respond to any potential innovations implemented by the competition.