Google Lets Users Tap Mobile Apps Without Downloading Them - Digits - WSJ

Stream different; also see Google App Streaming: A Big Move In Building “The Web Of Apps” (Marketing Land) and Google Brings Apps Into Browsers, Blurring Mobile-Desktop Lines (BloombergBusiness)

"With the new technology, Google is hosting select apps on its computers, then displaying the content as interactive streaming videos. Search results display “deep links” to relevant content inside the apps. Users can take actions, like booking a hotel room, by swiping or pushing a button, as they do on websites and apps.

The move is Google’s latest to confront a big challenge on smartphones, where users spend the majority of their time in apps, rather than on the Web. Google’s computers can’t easily look inside those apps to deliver search results, and lucrative ads alongside them. In recent months, Google also retooled its Chrome browser to make mobile websites more like apps and reached an agreement with Facebook Inc. allowing it to search portions of the social-network’s app."

Google Lets Users Tap Mobile Apps Without Downloading Them - Digits - WSJ