Google has recently announced the release of their new product, the Google Play. This is believed to be Google’s response into the growing popularity and need for multimedia, education and entertainment applications. On March 6th, 2012, Android Market that was announced on 28 August 2008, and was made available to users on 22 October, is re-branded and become Google Play.
It could be remembered that Apple's Apps Store gained popularity along with the release of its different products such as the iPhone and the iPad. The Apps Store from Apple is a virtual store where Apple users can download different applications where some of which are for educational, multimedia and entertainment purposes. On top of that Apple also has the iTunes where users can purchase or download for free the music they want to listen to.
Android users has been introduced to features like Google Music and Google Books. Now, users can access all the features as Google Play. Apps and games that was distributed from Android Market can now be downloaded via Google Play. To attract more users, Google offer special price discounts on movies, book and music.
In the U.S., music, movies, books and Android apps are available in Google Play. In Canada and the U.K., Google offer movies, books and Android apps; in Australia, books and apps; and in Japan, movies and apps. Everywhere else, Google Play will be the new home for Android apps.
Upgrade is done over the air (OTA) automatically. These changes will will ask users to accept their new terms of service for Play, Music, Books, and YouTube Rentals (Movie).
This popularity and growing interest for music downloads, e-book, multimedia and entertainment application downloads has increased exponentially along with the popularity of smartphones and other mobile devices. This is the reason why a lot of companies have been going into the music and application download bandwagon.
This move of Google bolsters their support to their Android market, ever since Google entered the mobile market and competed with Apple, the former have already made initial moves in order for them to compete. Along with this is the acquisition of a mobile advertising company which is said to increase Google’s advertising presence in the mobile platform. Aside from that Google also entered the mobile market by providing Android powered smartphones where the Android market, an application market similar to Apps Store, started.
With Google Play, the search engine giant hopes to drive more sales to their company as compared to the Apps Store of Apple, this is evident by the fact that just last year Android smartphones sales rose above Apples iPhone. This new product from Google may also give interest in the field of search engine optimization or online marketing.
The Google Play application is not an open source system. Only Android devices that comply with Google's compatibility requirements can install and access Google's closed-source Google Play application, subject to entering into a free-of-charge licensing agreement with Google. In the past, these requirements had included 3G or 4G cellular data connectivity, ruling out Android-powered devices comparable to Apple's iPod touch, but this requirement had been loosened by the 2011.
Google Play applications are self-contained Android Package files. When a user wishes to install an app, Google Play asks the user device's PackageManagerService to install it. The package manager becomes visible if the user downloads an APK file directly into their device. Installed apps are placed into the phone's internal storage, and under certain conditions can be installed to the device's external storage.
On March 13, 2013, Google Play celebrates its first birthday. Google has announced that in honor of Google Play's first birthday, the service was offering a week of deals and discounts in its media and app store. The company is giving special deals on music, movies, books, magazines, TV shows, and games. Among the offers are discounts from Google's partners.
Google Play features a download history allowing for users to trace back to earlier installed apps without searching manually, and if the app was purchased, can be reinstalled at a later date without having to buy it again. At this time, however, there is no way to permanently delete or remove apps downloaded from the Google Play website. Since version 3.9.16, users are able to remove apps from the "All Apps" list on devices only.
Since May 2013, Google that has an automated antivirus system to remove malicious apps uploaded on to the marketplace called Google Bouncer, has removed all ad blocking applications from Google Play.