image source: Facebook

BY EVAN THOMAS

You might be able to skip the App Store when you pick up the latest Angry Birds. Facebook has plans to consolidate a bunch of your desktop and mobile apps into one location — the App Center .

The App Center will track engagement, feedback and ratings to control quality, and give developers real-time feedback. The higher the quality, the more prominently an app will be featured. Facebook says The App Center will list any app, Android or iOS, that uses Facebook login, and there are plans for a flat-rate paid-apps system, too.

This is a welcome evolution from the social growth model — where users see what their friends are watching, reading and listening to on Facebook and elsewhere. Apps like the Washington Post Social Reader track the most popular stories among your friends.

But All Things Digital says popular apps like the Washington Post’s are the lucky few. Facebook apps could use a clearinghouse .

“But as Facebook seems to realize with Wednesday’s announcement, developers can’t rely entirely on social discovery for their apps to grow. Sure, you’ll get the occasional breakout successes… but users still need a home page to browse through apps.”

VentureBeat points out since it’s not tied to any one OS, Facebook has the opportunity to become a go-to solution for apps , no matter if users are on their desktop or mobile.

“…it has the Mechanical Turk-style combination of human intelligence (in the form of star ratings) and machine intelligence (in the form of app performance and usage data) to render better scores of quality than just about any other distribution channel.”

Cross-platform app indexing? The Next Web is impressed . And speculative.

“That’s a pretty big deal, I think. The bigger deal though is that Facebook, whether it wants to admit it or not, is setting itself up to be a huge player if it were to ever launch its own phone or operating system.”

Of course, Facebook has routinely shot down rumors to that effect. And ZDNet points out in its latest S-1, Facebook warned investors it’s still lacking in the mobile department. Facebook still isn’t making any revenue there. But Softpedia says the App Center could provide the catalyst — thanks to Facebook’s 900-million-odd users.

“It may look like a me-too effort, but Facebook's approach is different than anything we've seen so far, and the site's got some big advantages, the single biggest being its unmatchable size.”

For now, the App Center URL seen in Facebook’s screenshots doesn’t actually work. Facebook says we can expect access “in the coming weeks.”