Google have redesigned the web version of the Play Store and it is now live for all users to access.
Technically the new design is just to make it look the same as the Play Store app on Android Devices.
Frankly, I cannot say I am happy with the new Play Store. For one thing each app’s page has huge icons. Ugh!
And they have removed many features from the older version.
Search for apps:
Google, famed for their search engine, fail miserably with the Play Store’s search function. You can no longer filter the search results to show only free apps or paid apps. In fact there is no filter option at all. Not to mention, you can’t search for apps/games which are compatible with a particular device of yours.
As you can see the results are a mixed variety of free and paid apps.
Categories:
One can only be grateful that Google have left the categories section alone. Instead of a full list of categories displayed on the left hand side, we now have a dropdown list to choose from.
This is probably the only way to look for free and paid apps in a particular genre now.
Goodbye Header Images:
Google have killed one of the most popular features of the Play Store.
I used to find if an app was on sale or even read about the app by looking at the Header images. Many developers listed their app’s key features in the image. Sadly we can no longer have that experience. In fact, it looks just like the iTunes store now, with just a logo of the app on the page.
Reviews section:
This one is another major failure. We can no longer sort reviews. So if you want to see user reviews for the latest version of an app or sort the reviews by date or something, you have to use the Play store app on your device.
I wonder if this will impact developers too. How will they reply to user reviews? I can only guess that they have to do so using their Android devices.
On the bright side, you can still view the app information in a more organized manner.
New Apps/Games:
You can access new apps and games from this link, which will let you browse the following sections.
- Top New Paid Games
- Top New Free Android Apps
- Top New Paid Android Apps
Top Charts:
You can browse the Top Charts section to browse the following sections:
- Best Selling in Games
- Top Free in Android Apps
- Top Paid in Android Apps
- Top Grossing Android Apps
Manage your Wishlist:
Finally, you can manage your wishlist from the web version. You can add or remove apps from the apps page by just clicking on the Add to Wishlist/Remove buttons.
The Good:
- You can add or remove apps/games to your wishlist from the web version.
- Quick access to the category of the app/game that you are viewing.
- Better organized information about the apps (below the user reviews section)
The Bad:
- Huge icons on each app’s page.
- The death of the header images/logos.
- You have to scroll down the page to view similar apps.
- Cannot sort user reviews.
- Search results cannot be filtered to show only free or paid apps, or to show the ones which are compatible with a particular device of yours.
- No longer displays Ratings in search result or in the main pages. You have to manually visit the app’s page to see the ratings.
Like it or not, we are not left with a choice. We might as well get used to the new browser version of the Play Store.
