Google Continues Its Unification Process – App, Music, Book And Video Stores Now Branded As Google Play

After having unified its Privacy policies, Google has done a major revamp to the way you, the users, access its App, Music, Book and Video stores. Earlier, although they’d all be available from within the Android Market, discovery of Music and Books wasn’t as easy enough. This revamp aims to make that difficult thing easy.

It’s…

Google Increases App Size Limit 80 Fold To 4 GB

Ever realized how irritating it gets when you download a game/app (mostly games) that is supposedly a few MBs in size, only to find out that the said app/game asks you to download GBs of data before you could start using it? I have. And it was so irritating that I uninstalled the app/game right away.

But that isn’t the…

Google To OEMs: Use Holo Theme; Fail To Do So, No Market Access For You

You see what Google did there? It has taken the first step in the right direction to make sure there is some sort of consistency in the UI on Android-powered devices. At the same time, it should help ease some problems for the App Developers.

In a blog post today, Google’s Adam Powell,…

Android Market Reaches 10 Billion Downloads, And Google Is Giving Away Premium Apps For 10 Cents For 10 Days

Heylo Android fans! Your beloved Android Market has reached 10 Billion app downloads worldwide. 10 Billion, yes. And Google is celebrating this in a unique way. They’re offering a new set of premium apps for just 10 cents every day, for the next 10 days.

Before that, have a look at the growth rate of downloads. It’s HUGE!

Is Android Market Client Showing Description In Unknown (Chinese, probably) Language To You?

Lulz started to happen when I was browsing the Android Market yesterday night. I was setting up a device temporarily for use, and downloading apps that could be useful. Looking around, I found some app names in some unknown language (Chinese, I suppose, but I’m not sure), when I’d selected English (UK) as my primary language. See for yourself.

Note: I had Android Market v3.1.5 at the time, and there were…

Android Market And Gmail Working Again In China

Quick heads up guys, Google’s Android Market and Gmail are working again, in China.

According to Google, it was due to their fault, not a blockage from the Chinese authorities, which is sort of reassuring. A software update resulted in the inaccessibility, said Google.

We identified a technical issue during a software update,…

Android Market Blocked In China, Yet Again

Probably annoying. For both Google and Android Market users. Chinese government is at it again.

While the cause for the blockage is not known yet, but as TNW reports, most of the users are not able to access the site, while others are experiencing time-outs and lags. The blockage is spread across five…

Some User Comments And Ratings On Apps In The Android Market Missing

Developers are fuming over at the Support forums. Apparently, the number of ratings and comments have gone missing, say the devs.

Google says it is investigating into this and will resolve it as quickly as possible, but that is as much about it.

Now you and I won’t be very bothered about this, but for the…

Starbucks Launches It’s Android App, Lets You Pay With Your non-NFC Android

Pretty long title that. But well, it just happens to be that Starbucks, the world’s largest coffeehouse has launched it’s own Android app, realising the rise and rise of Android and the super-phones running it. Amazing.

What can it do? Well, pay for the over-priced coffee and stuff. You can login or create an account, load a card,…

Google Removes Another 10 Malware Apps From The Market

Google seems to be on a cleaning spree. Of late, it has started to sweep out the Android Market clean from Malware apps. All these 10 apps have one thing in common – Angry Birds. These apps were found to be malware-infected by a professor from North Carolina, Xuxian Jiang.

These apps were developed by 3 different devs, all of…

‘Open’ Android Market Receives Flak From Motorola’s CEO, Sanjay Jha

Oh see, someone just blamed the ‘Open’ Android Market for performance issues with some Motos. And it’s none other than the CEO of Motorola, Sanjay Jha.

According to him, the very open nature of the Android Market means that anyone in this world could upload any type of application to the market. He’s merely stating a fact…

AT&T To Start Allowing Installation Of Non-Market Apps

AT&T, the US carrier, seems to be all set to lift the restrictions on the sources of apps. Up until now, users could install on Android Market apps, from within the Android Market. That means you can’t install any .apk file from anywhere else, also called as side-loading. Here’s an excerpt of the statement from an AT&T spokesperson -

In March,…