Android

Google rolls out clumsy design for Google Play Store app anyway

The Google Play Store regularly gets some updates and improvements. Now it is time for the next step, and those improvements are hard to find. This is a new screen for the ‘My apps’ overview. Google seems to have finally decided to roll out this (terrible) interface.

Google Play Store with new design

Changes are pending for the Android app from the Google Play Store. In recent times, there has been an ever-increasing scale of testing with the roll-out of a new design for the list of installed apps. We have heard from more and more users that they have been offered the new interface. We also see this in the editorial office, where almost all devices have the new interface.

When you previously wanted to see in the Play Store app, whether updates were available, you could quickly see this. A tap on your profile picture and you could go to your app overview. That has become a lot more cumbersome in the new version. When you’re in the Google Play Store app, still tap your profile picture. Then choose the option ‘Manage apps and device’. You then have to go through one more step. You can see whether all apps are up-to-date, or whether updates are available. From that screen you can directly choose to update everything, or you can view details. If updates are available, you can expand them. If there are no updates, you can choose to view recent updates.

In previous posts, it seemed that you still had to manually filter to find apps for which an update was available. That does not seem to be necessary, that is only if you have all apps in an overview. However, it clearly provides much less insight into the apps that you have installed on your phone. It seems with this move that Google wants to encourage to have automatic app updates turned on. Google previously stopped sending a notification when an app was updated. More often apps are updated through a server-side update and changelogs are not always updated.

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