Google Play Store update

Google has pushed out a new visual update for the Play Store on the web and it is the most comprehensive UI overhaul so far. The store features a brand new interface throughout and also brings along some much needed speed improvement. Google updated the UI of the web portal for the Play Store this evening, and put the word out around 7:30PM EST On the homepage you can see they have gotten rid of the slideshow for apps on top and you simply start with recommended apps, games, movies, etc. tailored for you. If you want to see more, just click ‘See more’ on the side. The lists on the left have also been removed in the redesign. The homepage also tends to load content as you scroll down, as seen on the recent Play Store for Android update. Clicking on an app or any other link brings a quick loading animation and the page loads almost instantly, even on relatively slow connection, and significantly faster than the previous design. The new item page looks great, with details up top, screenshots in the middle and description below. Further down you’ll find the ratings and user reviews, along with similar items. You’ll notice that the compatibility list has been changed to a floating drop down list below the item name and that screenshots are now significantly bigger and higher resolution, although they do take much longer to load now. They also load in full resolution regardless of whether you want to click on them or not, which is a waste of bandwidth if you don’t end up opening them. There is a My Orders page hidden in the gear icon on the top right, where you will find a list of all items you have purchased from the Play Store, free or paid. The Settings page shows your devices and you can now choose to rename them or even hide them from appearing in the compatibility list in app pages. This is a boon if, like me, you have a million devices assigned to your account and want to get rid of old devices that are no longer in use. The latest Play Store update is definitely a step in the right direction and not just a visual enhancement over it’s predecessor but also functionally superior. Google's updated Play Store includes mention of Glass, implying that the company's headset will be managed through the store soon. Users who have linked Glass with their Google account have been seeing the device in the site's "compatible devices" list when viewing apps. The change is part of a visual overhaul of the Play Store that wasannounced at Google IO, bringing the web view in line with the company's Android app. Like the recently-updated Android storefront, the new design features Google Now-style cards, making everything look a little more organized.

USERS COULD DISCOVER AND INSTALL APPS STRAIGHT FROM GLASS

Bringing Glass support to the Play Store would streamline managing the device significantly. To install apps to Glass users are currently required to log into a Glass-specific portal on another device. Android and Me posted a screenshot revealing that a Play Store application is also on its way to the device, opening the door to on-device app installation for the first time. The screenshot shows a short message noting that "you have not opened the Google Play Store app recently on this device. Please open it and try again." Play Store support could also open the door to native apps on Glass. None of the apps released during Google's soft launch of the headset have been native APK files (the standard packaging format for Android applications). Instead, Glass currently only supports "Glassware" applications, which are fairly basic in their scope. A recent Glass update brought a full web browser and contact management support, but close examination revealed that full APK support could be on the way. Google employs a one-app strategy for Android — the same app runs on a 4-inch smartphone or a 10-inch tablet, with the layout expanding to fill the display. While it's not sure that we'll see regular apps on Glass's tiny display, Google could allow developers to code their apps to run across smartphones, tablets, and Glass. Even if native apps never happen, putting Glassware apps within the Play Store makes a lot of sense; giving users access to all of Google's apps, books, music, and videos in one location.

Whats exactly is changed

A Pretty Face

The new design is striking. It looks more like Android, but still feels at home on a larger screen. There are cards everywhere and the design is much cleaner overall. There are fewer tabs to cycle through, and lists are less scattered. Most of the things you'll care about are right in the middle. The web-based Play Store is also quite a bit faster in most places with this update. It makes use of AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to make page loads faster. The Play Store doesn't have to completely reload the page each time you click something – it only loads the things that have changed. Check out Artem's rundown of what that means. The new home tab has various editor's picks and recommendations. There are also top charts and new release tabs. This is a bit less information-dense than the old UI, but it's probably better for discoverability. By simplifying the UI, it looks like Google might have ditched a lot of features we've all come to rely on. Is that worth having a prettier Play Store?

The My Apps List Is Almost Useless

In the last version of the Play Store, we had a handy My Apps page that broke down your apps by device. You could see what needed updating, and push it down to the device from the web. There were also remote uninstalls (a great feature). All of that is gone now, and that makes me sad. The My Apps page is now a single, giant scrolling list of all your apps. If you download all the things (and if you're reading this, you probably do) this feature is almost completely useless now. The page takes much longer to load if you have a ton of apps, and scrolling is sluggish. There's no option to see what's installed on each of your devices, and no update/uninstall options. Check out the old version below. Some of these features were actually fairly new, so it's odd Google would just kill them off. I can understand removing something if no one was using it, but removing the device-specific lists seems foolish. It makes the page a mess.

Wishlists Hit The Web

Yes, the wishlist is no longer restricted to devices. You can view and edit the wishlist through the web store. Every app listing has a wishlist button that can be used to add or remove an app from the list. Accessing the wishlist is a bit strange. The link is in the sidebar, but only on the main Play Store page. I don't know why it isn't always visible in that floating sidebar, but that's how Google is doing it. This is just a list, though. You can't bulk remove content from it. It only links you to the apps, which you then remove with the button. So it would be a good idea to not overload your wishlist. App Listings are Prettier, But Missing The Little Things The first thing you'll notice is that app listings are great looking now. The icon is larger, and it's toward the middle next to the install and wishlist buttons. Additionally, the big feature image from the top of the old UI is no longer on the Play Store page at all. Why? No clue. Permissions used to have their own tab in the Play Store, but that's gone now. The only way to see the permissions an app requests it to hit the Install button. You don't have to actually install, but that popup has the permission list. When you do install apps, the new UI shows the last used date for every device, which the old one didn't. See below for comparison. The lists of similar apps, and those from the same developer are now scrollable lists. That's better for discovery, and the style jives with the new interface. This is a good change – it puts more information in front of you rather than less. The 30-day installation graph is missing, though. That's totally bizarre. It took up almost no space and was extremely useful.

Screenshots Are Totally Different

The screenshots are bigger and contained in a slick AJAX-based scrollable list. If you click on one or start scrolling, the image viewer expands to fill the available browser space. If you change the size of your window, the size of the blown up shot changes to match it. That's kind of neat. One drawback to the new screenshot viewer is that the escape key no longer exits full screen mode. Now you have to home in on the button in the upper right. The images are no longer PNGs with this update. Google has transitioned all Play Store images to the WebP format, which should load faster. If your browser doesn't support WebP, the Play Store falls back to PNG, but images will take about 10x longer to load. Again, we've got a whole post on this WebP and overall AJAX situation, so check that out for all the details.

Review Filters Are Gone, Along With Pagination

The previous version of the Play Store had sorting and filtering options for user reviews, but that appears to be gone now. You cannot choose to only see reviews from a certain device, star rating, latest version, or any other criteria. This is especially annoying if you're trying to find other users with your device to see if they might be seeing the same bug you are. You can only see two reviews next to the score breakdown chart. Click the arrow to scroll over, and the reviews do the same window filling trick from the screenshots. The current list seems to be in reverse chronological order. You can click through the reviews one seemingly random batch at a time. The old version was paginated with 10 pages, which was probably more usable.

Search Is Surprisingly Limited

When you perform a search from the top bar, the results are displayed in a nice-looking page of cards. However, there is no pagination at all. You scroll down and when you hit the 48th result, it just stops in the middle of a line. There is no arrow to go on to the next page, no infinite scroll – it's just done. These are all the search results you get. Better luck next time, apparently. As with the reviews, all the filtering options are gone here too. You used to be able to sort by popularity or relevance, for example. There was also a drop down where you could limit your search to paid or free apps. It's very weird Google would take this functionality out, especially if we're going to be limited to 48 results.

The Odds And Ends

There are a few other small changes we've noticed in the Play Store, including the translation bar. This used to be down at the bottom and translated the UI and the reviews. That's going to be a pain point for folks that need to see things in a different language. Additionally, before this rollout the old market.android URLs would redirect, but now they just 404. All these changes, and we still didn't see new features people have been asking for. Where are paid app filters? In-app purchase menus? App gifting? Nope. None of that. It looks like the revamped Play Store is rocking a slightly tweaked version of Roboto, though. It seems to have fewer glyphs than the "proper" Roboto versions, but we're going to go into detail on that in a separate post. The new Google Play web interface is much more attractive, but a lot of features were pruned in the process of redesigning it. It's unclear if any of these will be coming back, but this may very well be the way things are going to work from now on.

Overall, it just leads to more scrolling, but that's not so terrible. Screenshot images have been made larger, and the navigation tools on the left have been made dynamic so the options will change when you go to the various sections of the store. Best of all, the wishlist feature that has been in theAndroid version of the store for a while now has finally made it to the web, at least partially. You can add items to your wishlist, but you can't remove items, and the only way to get to your wishlist is with a link on the main page of the store, so you have to back out to get at that. 

As we said, lots of changes, but maybe not all for the best. But, given how quickly Google iterates, we're sure that our various issues will be sorted out soon enough.