Google has announced a major change to its digital marketplace for apps, music, movies and other content. Until now, what was (very popularly) known as the Android Market, has been renamed to Google Play. When I first heard of this, I thought this was something that Google had conjured up with respect to online gaming. As it turns out, Google Play will (obviously) also offer Games – apart from the usual crop of apps, books, movie rentals and of course, the recently launched music service.
The whole idea behind the Google Play initiative seems to be an effort to spruce up the overall shopping experience which if I may add, happened to be quite bland an affair on the Android Market. Anyway, I am sure there might be people who disagree there. Besides, I have a chronic allergy for shopping so you folks sort of know where I am coming from.
Now, for those of you thought that this was a mere renaming of the Android Market, wait, here is some more. Google clarifies that it has just integrated the Android Market under the umbrella of a much broader could based eco system that it calls Google Play.
The features that each Google Play account holder would get include the ability to store up to 20,000 songs for free and buy a host of new songs, choose from over 450,000 apps to download, browse a huge list of books and if you happen to be in the U.S, – rent thousands of movies.
In the next few days, the Android Market application on your Android powered devices would be updated to the new version with complete support for the Google Play eco system. All existing purchase records and license information would stay intact and all you have to do is to login normally with your Google username and password to get complete access to everything.
How different is this from Apple’s iCloud and iTunes approach? Well, read on:
Apple has the iTunes client that resides on your Mac or PC and is the hub for all digital content that you purchase from Apple. Recently this has been replaced by iCloud. Using iCloud, users can choose to have a backup of their stuff on iCloud only and skip the desktop iTunes sync ritual. Android on the other hand has always been free of such desktop software.
With Google Play, Google makes a move and brings all its offerings like Android Market, Music, Books & Movies under a single umbrella. Everything’s accessible from a single location. That we think is an edge over the Apple approach. Apple has a common store front on the desktop with iTunes, but on your iOS device (iPhone, iPad or iPod touch) you have App Store, iBooks (with store), iTunes (Music) etc. Thats fragmentation of its own kind. There may be a reason for Apple to keep it this way or perhaps it is “work in progress”. Either ways, Google Play looks fun and by the looks of it, a step in the right direction!
Anyway, you folks might as well head here for more dope on Google Play!
