Google is incorporating a grab bag of new features into itsPlay Storeapp market, which will promptly begin rolling out across theAndroidecosystem. A new AI app highlights feature, a ‘Collections’ experience, and new privacy settings are top billing with this update.
“Google Play’s next chapter includes more ways to discover apps, play games, earn rewards and get helpful content when you need it,“says Google in a blog post.
Google is about to allow more real-money gaming apps into the Play Store
The change will go into effect toward the middle of 2024.
Building upon the AI-generated app reviews and FAQs that the company announced back at itsI/O conference, this latest Play Store update incorporates more AI into the mix in the form of app highlights. Specifically, app listings will now automatically surface relevant information pertaining to the software in question.
In the example provided by Google, the AI appears within the search results page, which has landed on a photo editor application. The AI system highlights relevant app details including ‘Collage,’ ‘Effects,’ and ‘Sharing,’ along with a short blurb below each header.
Perhaps the most interesting new addition to the Play Store is a feature Google dubs ‘Collections.’ Essentially, the feature is designed to curate information and content from across related apps you’ve installed on your Android phone. For example, a shopping highlight tab might surface products from across the various big box retail store apps you’ve downloaded onto your device.
“With automatically organized categories – like Shop, Watch and Listen – each Collection highlights content from apps you’ve already installed. With your app content in one place, it’s easier to pick up right where you left off – like jumping back into a show or continuing to shop – or even discover something new,” says Google.
A new Collections widget is also accompanying the new experience, which will let you quickly access various categories directly from your home screen.
The company says that Collections is launching exclusively in the United States for the time being. Hopefully, it won’t take long for the feature to expand to more markets and languages internationally, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Alongside these new additions, Google is providing some smaller updates to coincide with the headlining ones. There’s a new filtering tool to hone-in on specific mobile gaming genres, a new Play Points tab that offers the chance to win weekly prizes, as well as new privacy tools that let you disable data sharing on a per-app basis.
The Google Play Store is evolving into ‘more than a store’
It appears that Google is pushing to evolve the Play Store into something more than simply a digital storefront for apps and games, with the company saying as much in its own words.
There’s certainly a balancing act involved here, particularly within the context of a growing sense of consumer AI fatigue. As well, there’s an inherent risk of cluttering up the user interface if these new Play Store features aren’t implemented in a manner that users find intuitive to browse through.
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