Last year, Google introduced an Arts & Culture app to showcase its collection of digitized art and other projects. The Google Cultural Institute is releasing an updated version of the app that is more feature-rich with a Google Cardboard VR component and a new Art Recognizer tool in select museums.
Google has today released a new app called “Arts & Culture,” but it’s pretty much the most disappointing app to come from the Mountain View company in quite some time. Actually, I don’t really know why it exists. It’s just a Chrome shortcut.
Yes, really. If you don’t want to download this app from Google Play, you can simply head over to the Google Cultural Institute website on your Android phone and add a shortcut to your home screen.
As you can see for yourself on the Play Store listing, the new app comes in at just 52KB. Once you open the app and navigate around, you quickly find out that it’s not a native app — the hamburger menu, for instance, is a laggy mess. Moving around the content found within the app (which is exactly the same content you can find at the Cultural Institute website) is not really enjoyable at all.
Ranting aside, you can grab the app for free on the Play Store.