There are three reasons I really like Chrome apps: They can run in a windowed/chrome-less mode (no navigation bar), you can write offline HTML5 apps that actual

There are three reasons I really like Chrome apps: They can run in a windowed/chrome-less mode (no navigation bar), you can write offline HTML5 apps that actually work, and discoverability via the Chrome web store. And as somebody else mentioned, it gives you access to the USB JavaScript APIs, which is pretty cool.