While many users still choose native Windows apps over Chrome apps – services such as Google Drive and TweetDeck spring to mind – the new Chrome App Launcher certainly removes some of the perceived friction. Given Google’s expansion of Chrome as a wider, more fully-featured platform, as well as its desire to move more users into the cloud, its subsequent expansion onto Windows is therefore justified. Image: Google Chrome Community Manager Ernest Cabrera, sharing a rundown of features in a post on the Google Product Forum, describes ‘Launcher 2. The new launcher, spotted by Engadget, was originally built for Chrome OS as a way of promoting Google’s own services and replicating some of the functionality found in the taskbar or dock of a traditional desktop operating system. One of the upcoming changes is, as we revealed a few weeks back, integration of Google Now Cards inside the new look Chrome App Launcher.

It’s essentially a shortcut to the landing page on the Chrome browser, which shows a horizontal grid of large, brightly colored icons for accessing extensions and other useful Chrome apps.

Windows users can now download and enable the Chrome App Launcher, giving them instant access to common Web-based Google services such as the Chrome browser, Gmail, Google Drive and the Chrome store.

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