Category: Google Play Store

Over the course of the past few weeks, Google has been doing a lot of tinkering with various apps and services for Android.  One of these tweaks, in the Google Play Store app, is the ability to sort your installed apps.

In the Google Play Store app, you have always been able to see your installed apps on your phone or tablet by going to My apps & games then to the Installed tab.  There you would see the number of apps you have installed on your device and they would be presented to you in the order of last updated.  Now you can change that sorting.  Next to your app’s total app count, there is a new pull down that allows you to sort your apps four ways:  Alphabetical, Last Updated, Last Used and Size.

The mobile analytics firm App Annie has pegged, for the first time, that the combined Android app stores in the market will out earn Apple’s App Store this year.  According to their report, they project that Android based stores will earn about $41 billion in 2017 compared to the $40 billion that Apple will earn with their app store.  The report is quick to point out that the Android numbers are a combination of the various app stores for Android that exist, such as Amazon’s Underground and Samsung’s app store.

If you strip down the report to just the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, Apple still leads the way.  The Google branded store will account for $20 billion of the projected $41 billion this year but the Apple store alone churns $40 billion in earnings.

There has been a minor behind-the-scenes update to the Google Play Store that some users are seeing.  If you go to the Top Charts in the Store, some users are now seeing a “Show installed apps” toggle at the top of each page.  Enabling this allows you to either display or hide the apps from that chart that you already have installed.  The idea is to speed things up a bit by not having to wade through apps you already have installed.  You can simply hide them and see the other top apps you don’t have installed.

There is nothing that you need to do necessarily to get the update.  It will just appear for you once it hits your account.

Having already posted some $700 million in ticket sales world wide, one of the big movie hits of 2016 has been Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.  The movie is set between the much maligned prequels and A New Hope, the original Star Wars movie, focusing on a band of Rebels who are trying to steal the plans to the Death Star.  If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and see it.  It’s quite good.

Now you can get ready to own Rogue One when it is hits the Google Movies & TV store in the Play Store.  The movie is now available in the store as an item that you can wishlist.  This is the first step before you can pre-order it.

It has been rolling around in, erm, beta for a while now but the new Beta channel in the Google Play Store is now available to everyone.  The update on the back end and a recent update to the Play Store app on Android will now show you the beta apps that are available to you for the apps installed on your phone or tablet.  Generally it is only going to show you the beta programs you are involved in so don’t look for beta programs to join here.  Rather, it is simply a way for you to easily see which apps you are running beta code.

Right now at the Google Play Store, there is a huge sale going on a wide range of movies.  You can pick up some great titles for as low as $5.99 in HD and as low as $3.99 in SD.  There is a good mix of titles at are on sale from the recently released Zoolander No. 2, to the classic Matrix trilogy, the Taken series and all of the Fast and Furious series.  If you have been wanting to bulk up your movie collection, now is the time.