Google Play Store

731 'Google Play Store' stories August 2012 - November 2017

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Before the unified Play branding, Google had the Android Market, Google Music, and Google eBookstore. Google decided to merge and rebrand its individual digital offerings into the Play Store in March of 2012.

The Play Store is now the default place to purchase apps, movies & television, music, books, and news subscriptions for all Android devices. The latter four offerings having their individual Android and iOS apps to watch, listen, and read purchased content. Most content can also be accessed through the web.

In April of 2016, the suite of icons were redesigned in a similar style to provide a consistent look across all devices and the web.

Google set to remove apps from Play Store that use Accessibility Services not designed for users with disabilities

Justin Duino Nov 12 2017 - 10:00 am PT

lastpass

To better help users with disabilities, Android has a set of Accessibility Services that developers can use to improve their applications. For some time, though, these services and APIs have been used by some apps (such as LastPass and Tasker) to create unique overlay user interfaces and control functions within other apps.

Now, according to an email from Google, unless developers can describe how the app properly uses the Accessibility Services to help users who are disabled, it will need to remove all requests for accessibility services or it will be taken off of the Play Store…

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Free Money: Snag 10% off $50 Google Play gift card digitally delivered in minutes from Amazon

9to5 Staff Oct 29 2017 - 8:41 pm PT

From 9to5Toys.com:

Amazon has a $50 Google Play Store digital gift card on sale for $45 when you use the coupon code GOOGLE5 at checkout. This is $5 off of the normal price, saving you a few bucks this holiday season.

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How to stop new apps from being added to your home screen on Android Oreo

Justin Duino Oct 29 2017 - 6:00 am PT

Android has long had a feature that automatically added shortcuts to the home screen after they were downloaded from the Google Play Store. As this could get annoying, the feature could be disabled within the Play Store’s settings menu. With Oreo, though, Google moved this setting out of the store itself and placed it into one of the operating system’s menus. Here’s how to turn this automatic feature off…

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Google Play Store

Google halving its cut of in-app subscriptions, mirroring Apple’s move last year

Ben Lovejoy Oct 20 2017 - 5:16 am PT

Google Play Store Android

Google has announced that it is halving its commission on the sale of in-app subscriptions from 30% to 15%. The change will take effect in January of next year.

The move mirrors one made by Apple last year, likely for the same reasons …

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Google Play Store rolling out nested tab design that goes against Material guidelines

Abner Li Oct 18 2017 - 7:39 pm PT

Several weeks ago, users spotted a new Google Play design on Android that featured a nested navigation bar just underneath the main tab of categories. That redesign — which goes against the Material guidelines — now appears to be more widely rolling out today.

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Google Play Store tests displaying top chart ranks in app listings

Abner Li Oct 5 2017 - 8:59 pm PT

Google Play Store

Following a recent redesign to the Play Store’s high-level organization that separated various types of media into their own tabs, Google Play is testing a change that better highlights app rankings. When applicable, an app listing will now include a top chart rank.

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Google Play Movies upgrades

Google apparently testing lower 4K movie pricing on Google Play Movies to match Apple

Ben Schoon Sep 27 2017 - 10:36 am PT

Earlier this month Apple announced the 4K HDR-capable Apple TV, and along with that, the company revealed that it had worked with studios to match 4K pricing with that of HD. Now, it appears that those lower prices are starting to spread to other digital movie outlets, specifically Google Play Movies.

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Google Play Protect within the Play Store is now widely rolling out

Abner Li Sep 7 2017 - 11:32 am PT

After beginning its rollout a month ago, Google Play Protect in the Play Store is now widely showing up for many users. Play Protect is just a rebrand of existing security features long found in Play Services, but is now more prominent and visible within Android.

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User-facing Google Play Protect features are now rolling out in the Play Store app

Stephen Hall Aug 9 2017 - 7:53 am PT

Much of “Google Play Protect” — announced back at I/O in May — is just a public-facing rebrand of security features that have long been part of Android. We saw of the beginning of its rollout when Verify Apps was rebranded with the Protect branding last month, and now the Play Store side of things is showing for some users.

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Google launches ‘Made for India’ program to highlight optimized apps in the Play Store

Abner Li Aug 1 2017 - 9:57 am PT

India is a big focus for Google with numerous country-specific initiatives and app optimizations. Given how the growth potential also applies to developers in the country, Google today launched a “Made for India” program to feature optimized apps in the Play Store.

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Google Play will discount full TV seasons based on episodes you already own

Abner Li Jul 27 2017 - 2:14 pm PT

In line with other digital media stores, Google Play Movies & TV has a convenient feature that allows users to buy TV seasons at a discounted price if they already own existing episodes.

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Google applies machine learning to group and weed out harmful apps in the Play Store

Abner Li Jul 12 2017 - 10:47 am PT

Over the past year, Google has instituted a number of efforts to find harmful apps in the Play Store. The latest applies machine learning on a large-scale to a technique known as peer group analysis that compares apps in order to find malicious ones.

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Google Play Store revamps Editors’ Choice section w/ Android Excellence lists of top apps

Abner Li Jun 13 2017 - 10:05 am PT

After discontinuing the Top Developers badge last month, Google is now launching a successor to recognize the best apps and games in the Play Store. These Android Excellence collections are located in a revamped Editors’ Choice section that includes more editorial.

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Google introduces new tools to help developers build successful subscription-based apps

Justin Duino May 22 2017 - 5:30 am PT

One struggle felt by all developers is getting users to pay for mobile applications. This issue affects developers creating $0.99 games as well as those coding $5 photo editing applications. To make up for lost revenue, developers have turned to using in-app purchases as well as subscription-based models. To make subscriptions a more viable option for companies and individual developers alike, Google has introduced several new tools within the Google Play Console…

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Android devs can now block app installations on devices that don’t pass SafetyNet

Justin Duino May 18 2017 - 8:01 pm PT

Last weekend, Netflix was in the news because the company made it so that rooted devices and those with unlocked bootloaders could no longer download the application. Netflix quickly confirmed that it would start blocking the installation of the app from the Play Store for devices that didn’t pass Google’s Safety Net. Now, Google has updated the Google Play Console to make it easier for all developers to do the same thing…

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Google Play Store version 7.8.16 brings a new app icon

Stephen Hall May 11 2017 - 1:20 pm PT

Google has a reputation for the constantly-evolving aesthetics of its software products, despite the thankfully otherwise stabilizing influence of Material Design. The latest version of the Play Store app changes its app icon once again, ditching the shopping bag of old…

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Google Play Store carrier billing now supports Boost Mobile in the US

Stephen Hall Apr 10 2017 - 12:59 pm PT

Google Play carrier billing, a service which lets you have purchased media charged to your wireless carrier bill, is expanding to more carriers across the world. Today’s update to the Google Support page shows support for Boost Mobile in the US and new carriers in 6 other countries, too…

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PSA: Google Play now has a ‘Free App of the Week’ section

Stephen Hall Mar 27 2017 - 7:51 am PT

Apple’s App Store has long had weekly free apps, but now it looks like Google is getting in on that game. A new page discovered on the Play Store over the weekend suggests that we should be seeing a new free app promotion on a regular (weekly, to be specific) basis…

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Updated Play Store with a new ‘My Apps’ section appears to be rolling out now [Gallery]

Justin Duino Mar 25 2017 - 11:01 am PT

Update 4/19/17: It looks like this feature is now rolling out more widely.

Yesterday we got our first look at a Play Store design tweak currently rolling out to some that changes the look of search results. In addition to that change, it appears that Google is now slowly rolling out a design update that looks similar to what we saw in a leaked “dogfood” version of the Play Store last month…

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Google testing complete redesign of ‘My Apps’ section of Google Play, includes sort option

Justin Duino Feb 3 2017 - 8:25 am PT

Before Google ever pushes out a major update to any of its applications, the company sends a ‘dogfood’ build of the app to their internal beta testers to get their feedback on new features, designs, or anything else. It appears that Google is currently beta testing a brand new Play Store update that revamps the ‘My Apps’ section…

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Google Allo passes 10 million installs after 12 weeks on the Play Store

Stephen Hall Dec 13 2016 - 8:12 am PT

Google Allo passed 1 million downloads just a few days after its launch, on September 24th. It then passed 5 million downloads only four days later, on September 28th. Now, almost 3 months since that landmark, Allo has passed 10 million installs on the Google Play Store. This means that, in the last 11 weeks, Allo has amassed the same number of new installs as it did in its first week.

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Google has made application updates through the Play Store roughly 65% smaller

Justin Duino Dec 7 2016 - 9:44 am PT

For most people, downloading and updating applications on their phones is a task that takes place while using WiFi, as the files can sometimes be large and use chunks of their monthly data plans. With a new update method being introduced into the Google Play Store, the size of application updates should be dramatically smaller…

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Google rolling out a new card-style layout for the Play Store [Video]

Stephen Hall Nov 30 2016 - 7:50 am PT

Google seems to be slowly rolling out, via a server-side update, a new layout for the Play Store app that allows you to scroll through app listings via a new card-style layout.

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Google Play Store prematurely rolling out 4K UHD movies starting at $24.99

Abner Li Nov 18 2016 - 10:42 am PT

With Google already selling its first 4K streaming device with the Chromecast Ultra, UHD content is starting to makes its way into the Play Store. The rollout is happening a bit prematurely, but it appears that 4K movies will start at $24.99…

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