Google Play
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store or Play Store, and formerly known as the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit and published through Google. Google Play has also served as a digital media store, with it offering various media for purchase such as books, movies, musical singles, television programs, and video games.
Content that has been purchased on Google TV and Google Play Books can be accessed on a web browser and through certain Android and iOS apps. An individual's Google Account can feature a diverse collection of materials to be heard, read, watched, or otherwise interacted with. The nature of the various things offered through Google Play's services have changed over time given the particular history of the Android operating system.
Applications are available through Google Play either for free or at a cost. They can be downloaded directly on an Android device through the proprietary Google Play Store mobile app or by deploying the application to a device from the Google Play website. Applications utilizing the hardware capabilities of a device can be targeted at users of devices with specific hardware components, such as a motion sensor or a front-facing camera. The Google Play Store had over 82 billion app downloads in 2016 and over 3.5 million apps published in 2017, while after a purge of apps, it is back to over 3 million. It has been the subject of multiple issues concerning security, in which malicious software has been approved and uploaded to the store and downloaded by users, with varying degrees of severity.
Google Play was launched on March 6, 2012, bringing together Android Market, Google Music, Google Movies, and Google Books under one brand, marking a shift in Google's digital distribution strategy. Following their rebranding, Google has expanded the geographical support for each of the services. Since 2021, Google has gradually sunsetted the Play brand: Google Play Newsstand was discontinued and replaced by Google News, Google Play Music was discontinued and replaced by YouTube Music on December 3, 2020, and Play Movies & TV was rebranded as Google TV on November 11, 2021.
Catalog content
Android applications
By the end of 2017, Google Play featured more than 3.5 million Android applications. After Google purged many apps from the Google Play Store starting in 2024, there were 1.68 million Android applications in 2024. As of 2017, developers in more than 150 locations could distribute apps on Google Play, though not every location supports merchant registration. Developers receive 85% of the application price, while the remaining 15% goes to the distribution partner and operating fees. Developers can set up sales, with the original price struck out and a banner underneath informing users when the sale ends. Google Play allows developers to release early versions of apps to a select group of users, as alpha or beta tests. Users can pre-order select apps to have the items delivered as soon as they are available. Some network carriers offer billing for Google Play purchases, allowing users to opt for charges in the monthly phone bill rather than on credit cards. Users can request refunds within 48 hours after a purchase.Games
At the Google I/O 2013 Developer Conference, Google announced the introduction of Google Play Games. Google Play Games is an online gaming service for Android that features real-time multiplayer gaming capabilities, cloud saves, social and public leaderboards, and achievements. Its standalone mobile app was launched on July 24, 2013.Books
Google Play Books is an ebook digital distribution service. Google Play offers over five million ebooks available for purchase, and users can also upload up to 1,000 of their own ebooks in the form of PDF or EPUB file formats., Google Play Books is available in 75 countries.Movies and TV shows
Google Play Movies & TV was a video on demand service offering movies and television shows available for purchase or rental, depending on availability., movies are available in over 110 countries, while TV shows are available only in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom.
In October 2020, Google Play Movies & TV was renamed Google TV.
Google announced on March 22, 2022, that Google Play will remove Play Movies & TV from their store and will be moved to Google TV by May 2022.
Play Pass
On September 23, 2019, Google launched its Google Play Pass games and apps subscription service in the US. As of September 2019, subscribers could access the games and apps without ads and in-app purchases. The program is invitation-only for app developers, who then can integrate the service into their existing apps.Device updates
Google introduced Project Mainline in Android 10, allowing core OS components to be updated via the Google Play Store, without requiring a complete system update.Android 10 supports updates for core OS components including:
- Security: Media Codecs, Media Framework Components, DNS Resolver, Conscrypt
- Privacy: Documents UI, Permission Controller, ExtServices
- Consistency: Time zone data, ANGLE, Module Metadata, Networking components, Captive Portal Login, Network Permission Configuration
Teacher Approved
In 2020, Google launched a new children-focused 'Teacher Approved' section for the Google Play Store. Apps marked as 'Teacher Approved' meet higher standards approved for educational purposes.History
Google Play originated from three distinct products: Android Market, Google Music and Google Books,.Apps
Android Market was announced by Google on August 28, 2008, and was made available to users on October 22. In December 2010, content filtering was added to Android Market, each app's details page started showing a promotional graphic at the top, and the maximum size of an app was raised from 25 megabytes to 50 megabytes. The Google eBookstore was launched on December 6, 2010, debuting with three million ebooks, making it "the largest ebooks collection in the world". In January 2011 Google eBookstore was rebranded as Google Books. In November 2011, Google announced Google Music, a section of the Google Play Store offering music purchases. In March 2012, Google increased the maximum allowed size of an app by allowing developers to attach two expansion files to an app's basic download; each expansion file with a maximum size of 2 gigabytes, giving app developers a total of 4 gigabytes. Also in March 2012, Android Market was re-branded as Google Play.The Google Play Store, including all Android apps, came to ChromeOS in September 2016.
In May 2021, Google Play announced plans to implement a new section with privacy information for all applications in its storefront. The project is similar to App Store's privacy labels and is expected to be released in full in the first half of 2022. The feature will show users what kind of information each app collects, whether the data it stores is encrypted and whether users can opt out of being tracked by the application.
In December 2023, Google agreed to pay $700 million, mostly to its customers, to resolve complaints of anti-competitive behavior from U.S. states. Google also agreed to give users the option to pay through another party other than Google at download time, and make it easier to download apps from web sites directly. Google Play has until March 6, 2024, to comply with the new Digital Markets Act in the European Union.
Music
Google Play Music was a music and podcast Streaming media and online music locker. It features over 40 million songs, and gives users free cloud storage of up to 50,000 songs., Google Play Music was available in 64 countries.
In June 2018, Google announced plans to shut down Play Music by 2020 and offered users to migrate to YouTube Music, migration to Google Podcasts was announced in May 2020. In October 2020, the music store for Google Play Music was shut down. Google Play Music was shut down in December 2020 and was replaced by YouTube Music and Google Podcasts.
News publications and magazines
Google Play Newsstand was a news aggregator and digital newsstand service offering subscriptions to digital magazines and topical news feeds. Google released Newsstand in November 2013, combining the features of Google Play Magazines and Google Currents into a single product., the basic Newsstand service, was available worldwide. As of 2017, paid Newsstand content was available in more than 35 countries.
On May 15, 2018, the mobile app merged with Google News & Weather to form Google News. The Newsstand section continued to appear on the Google Play website until November 5, 2018, but now is only available through the Google News app.
Devices
Until March 2015, Google Play had a "Devices" section for users to purchase Google Nexus devices, Chromebooks, Chromecasts, other Google-branded hardware, and accessories. A separate online hardware retailer called the Google Store was introduced on March 11, 2015, replacing the Devices section of Google Play.User interface
Apart from searching for content by name, apps can also be searched through keywords provided by the developer. When searching for apps, users can press on suggested search filters, helping them to find apps matching the determined filters. For app discoverability, Google Play Store consists of lists featuring top apps in each category, including "Top Free", a list of the most popular free apps of all time; "Top Paid", a list of the most popular paid apps of all time; "Top Grossing", a list of apps generating the highest amounts of revenue; "Trending Apps", a list of apps with recent installation growth; "Top New Free", a list of the most popular new free apps; "Top New Paid", a list of the most popular new paid apps; "Featured", a list of new apps selected by the Google Play team; "Staff Picks", a frequently updated list of apps selected by the Google Play team; "Editors' Choice", a list of apps considered the best of all time; and "Top Developer", a list of apps made by developers considered the best. In March 2017, Google added a "Free App of the Week" section, offering one normally paid app for free. In July 2017, Google expanded its "Editors' Choice" section to feature curated lists of apps deemed to provide good Android experiences within overall themes, such as fitness, video calling, and puzzle games.Google Play enables users to know the popularity of apps by displaying the number of times the app has been downloaded. The download count is a color-coded badge, with special color designations for surpassing certain app download milestones, including grey for 100, 500, 1,000, and 5,000 downloads, blue for 10,000 and 50,000 downloads, green for 100,000 and 500,000 downloads, and red/orange for 1 million, 5 million, 10 million, and 1 billion downloads.
Users can submit reviews and ratings for apps and digital content distributed through Google Play, which are displayed publicly. Ratings are based on a 5-point scale. App developers can respond to reviews using the Google Play Console.