Google Play Tests a Sidebar for Related Apps

Patryk Szczygłowski, a reader of this blog, noticed an experimental web interface for Google Play. The updated UI adds a sidebar that shows similar apps and other apps from the same developer. Right now, these lists of apps are placed at the bottom of the page, below the description, reviews, changelog and other information about the app.

"Please note, it doesn't fit my laptop screen 1366x768, but Google might enable this experiment for me, because I have been using an external Full HD screen for a week recently," says Patryk.

{ Thanks, Patryk. }

Chrome Web Store Links to Android Apps

Chrome Web Store now shows links to Google Play for apps and extensions that are also available for Android. For example, Pocket's page includes this message next to the number of users: "Available for Android. Get it".

You can also find Chrome apps and extensions that are available for Android:

Google Play doesn't show links to Chrome Web Store apps, at least not yet. It will be interesting to see if Google plans to keep a separate store for Chrome or merge it with Google Play. When Google rebranded Android Market, I speculated that Google Play will become Google's unified store for digital content.

{ via Chrome Story }

PayPal Billing in Google Play

Google Play added support for a very popular payment service: PayPal. "We're making it possible for people to choose PayPal for their Google Play purchases in 12 countries, including the U.S., Germany, and Canada. When you make a purchase on Google Play in these countries, you'll find PayPal as an option in your Google Wallet; just enter your PayPal account login and you'll easily be able to make purchases," informs Google.

Here's the full list of countries where PayPal is now supported: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, United States, United Kingdom. One important notice: "PayPal can't be used to purchase devices or accessories on Google Play or for other purchases that use Google Wallet outside of the Play Store."

Google has always tried to promote its own payment service, whether it was called Google Checkout or Google Wallet, so why would Google add support for a competing service? Google offers an answer: "Sales of apps and games on Google Play are up by more than 300 percent over the past year. And today, two-thirds of Google Play purchases happen outside of the United States, with international sales continuing to climb. We're hoping to fuel this momentum by making Google Play payments easier and more convenient for people around the world."

In addition to supporting PayPal, Google also added carrier billing to 7 more countries (including Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan) and Google Play gift cards to 13 more countries (including Japan and Germany). "Developers based in 13 new countries can now sell apps on Google Play (with new additions such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey), bringing the total to 45 countries with support for local developers."

Google Play's Unicorns Easter Egg

Google Play has a cool Easter Egg: click the search button without entering a query and you'll get results for "unicorns". This works for books, music, movies, magazines, apps and even devices.

{ Thanks, D4Ni. }

PayPal, Payment Method in Google Play?

There are multiple payment options in Google Play, from credit and debit cards to carrier billing and gift cards, but PayPal isn't one of them. Google Wallet competes with PayPal and this could be one of the reasons why you can't use PayPal in Google Play.

Despite this, some Google Wallet JavaScript files that are used in Google Play include many references to PayPal. For example, PayPal is placed next to Maestro, Automated Clearing House (ACH), proxy cards and carriers like Sprint, Softbank and Vodafone. Google's code also mentions PayPal UUIDs, which are used by the PayPal Merchant API, and there's a function named "onRedirectToPayPalPopup". There's also an error message: "PAYPAL_INSTRUMENT_ERROR" next to messages like "GIFT_CARD_ALREADY_REDEEMED" and "INVALID_CREDIT_CARD".

Google Music Trash

Google Music now has a trash page that includes all the songs you've deleted. You can find the page by clicking the "options" icon and selecting "Music trash" from the menu. The songs are permanently deleted after 28 days (why not 30 days like in Gmail?), but you can also manually do that. There's also an "undelete" button for restoring music files.



It's interesting to notice that the deleted music files are no longer synced with Google Music Manager. As Google explains, "once you permanently delete [a song], the content and related data (e.g., stored play counts) will be disassociated from your account. There may be some delay before our systems fully process your removal request. In addition, if this content was purchased from Google Play, the only way to retrieve it is to repurchase the content."

Google Play, Added to the Navigation Bar

There's a new service in Google's navigation bar: Google Play. The link replaces Google Music and it's prominently placed next to popular services like Google Maps and YouTube. For now, the link takes you to the Google Play homepage and your query is ignored.

It's interesting to notice that Google's navigation bar changed its purpose from showcasing popular services to promoting new services. Ever since it was launched, Google+ became the first service from the navigation bar, even if Google Search was the most popular service. Then Google added links to services like Google Offers, Google Wallet and a page that lists Google's mobile apps.

Google Play is more than a new name for Android Market, it's Google's attempt to sell digital content across different platforms: from apps to music, from books to movies, from magazine subscriptions to TV shows and more. It makes sense to integrate Google Play with Google Search and maybe include the top results in an OneBox, assuming that they're relevant.

{ Thanks, Joshua, Kartik, Thomas, Marian, Shimmy, Matan and TechDows. }

Google's Unified Gaming Platform

Google Play may not be a great name for an ebook store, but it's the perfect name for a game platform. Right now, you can only download Android games from Google Play, but that may change in the future.

"By next year, we will not be (...) talking about Google+ Games, Chrome Web Store games, Games for Native Client and Android games, we will be talking about Google games," says Punit Soni, Google Product Manager.

The Google Games platform is supposed to be launched later this year. "Soni also indicated that they were planning on making Google Games truly social, offering Hangouts for video communication, mobile games, and better distribution and discoverability for games," informs Android and Me.

Hopefully, the new platform will bring more high-quality Android games, powerful games in the Chrome Web Store and some addictive Google+ games. It would be nice to pause a game on your phone or tablet and continue playing it on your computer.

Google provides a cross-platform library for writing games and creating Java desktop apps, HTML5 web apps and mobile apps for Android and iOS. The PlayN library was used to create the HTML5 version of Angry Birds.

In addition to developer tools, Google also has services like App Engine, AdMob and In-App Payments to host and monetize games.

Audio Books in Google Play?

It looks like Google Play, the unified online store launched yesterday, could add a new type of digital content: audio books. The Google Play help center includes an empty page titled "Audio Books".


There are also two genres with a similar name: "audio books" and "audiobooks", but the ebook store doesn't include audio books. Genres could be automatically generated.


Google has recently registered a lot of domains like googleplaymovies.com, googleplaynewspapers.com, googleplaymagazines.com, googleplaytv.com and this suggests that Google Play could offer subscriptions for magazines, newspapers and TV shows.

{ Thanks, Joel. }

Google Play, Android Market's New Name

Google announced the launch of a new service called Google Play, "a digital entertainment destination where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite music, movies, books and apps". Google Play is the new name for the Android Market, an all-encompassing brand that also integrates Google Music and Google eBook Store. It's just like iTunes, except that it's born on the Web and you don't need special software to play music or read books.


"Our goal with Google Play is to bring together all your favorite content in one place that you can access across your devices. Specifically, digital content is fundamental to the mobile experience, so bringing all of this content together in one place for users makes the Android platform even more compelling. We're also simplifying digital content for Google users - you can go to the Google Play website on your desktop and purchase and experience the latest movies, music and books," explains Google.

The Android Market app will have a new name (Google Play Store) and this may confuse a lot of people. After all, Android Market is one of the few apps that are bundled with most Android devices. Google Play brings the same features that were available in Android Market and it's still targeted to the Android users, but the new brand no longer includes "Android". This allows Google to create a single destination for multiple platforms: iOS, Windows Phone, Google TV, Chrome / Chrome OS.


"On your Android phone or tablet, we'll be upgrading the Android Market app to the Google Play Store app over the coming days. Your videos, books and music apps (in countries where they are available) will also be upgraded to Google Play Movies, Google Play Books and Google Play Music apps," informs the Google Blog.



Google Play Music is only available in the US, Google Play Movies is available in the US, UK, Canada, and Japan, while Google Play Books only works in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. That means most Google Play users will only be able to install Android apps.


Google Play is a catchy name, it's platform-agnostic, flexible and could encourage more people to buy music and books even if they don't have an Android device. Android users will have to get used to the new name and the new visual identity.

{ Thanks, Andrew. }