Stable Chrome Vs. Chrome Canary: The App launcher

Chrome Canary

Chrome web Store provides different content based on the browser that you're using. When you open these contents in Chrome Canary version, you'll find that all the apps are there in a single group. In Chrome Canary version, all apps are linked to a website that were previously displayed here have been moved to the websites group where you find them now. But in the stable version of Chrome apps are displayed in categories in the store. You can browse to narrow down your search, much like you can in the new websites group if you open the store in Chrome Canary.

Google now started  to differentiate between apps that link to a website, and so called Packed apps.  Packaged apps can interact with Chrome APIs and services that websites cannot.

When you add an application to Chrome Canary, you receive an "Introducing the Chrome App Launcher"  page while you do not get that page when you add apps to Chrome Stable.

A click on no thanks adds the application to your web browser but does not install the launcher. The first button however direct you to sign in page  that requires you to log in to your Google account - again - to add the app launcher to your desktop operating system.

After following above step, you'll get a new icon on your taskbar automatically. A click on it opens a menu that contains all the installed apps with a search option on top of the menu.

You can launch any app from the menu and the search option will help you to find installed apps. The app launcher provides you with another option to launch apps installed in the browser. Other options include adding them to the operating system's start menu, desktop or if supported the taskbar.

This feature is available for Chrome Dev and Canary only but expected soon also for Linux and Mac versions, and later on to Beta .