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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.

October Google System Updates: Connect Wear OS to ‘multiple phones,’ more [U]

With Android 14 and Wear OS 4 both now fully released, this month’s Google System Updates showcase a few other improvements coming for our phones, tablets, and smartwatches, including the ability to connect a Wear OS watch to “multiple phones.”

Update: The latest patch notes reveal new changes coming to the Play Store on Wear OS, among other upgrades.

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September Google System Updates: Android 14 browser gestures, more [U]

Google Passkey create manage

As part of the September 2023 Google System Updates, Android is set to gain better support for using a PIN with the FIDO2 security standard, among other improvements.

Update: Ahead of the expected October launch of Android 14, Google is now discussing the addition of stylus and trackpad gestures for Android’s built-in web browser.

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Your Android phone can automatically ‘archive’ apps you don’t use – how to turn it on

While our phones have more storage available than ever before, a big library of apps can still lead to eating up a lot of storage on your device. Android recently added an option to automatically “archive” apps that aren’t being used very often, and now that functionality has been made easily available to all users.

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