Google has announced a Play Store redesign specifically aimed at larger devices such as foldables and tablets.
At last year’s Google I/O, the company announced that big changes were coming to its app store for large screen devices. Now, in a fresh blog post, Google has announced four major updates that will help users of such devices to find the apps that make the most of that extra screen space.
First up is a revamped app listing system, which prioritises apps with high quality videos attached to them. Said footage will be embedded as a banner at the top of the listing. There’s also a new multi-column layout that will squeeze more information onto devices with larger screens.
Secondly, Google has tweaked its app ranking algorithm to favour those apps that have been optimised for large-screen devices. They’ll now be more likely to appear in your app searches than those apps that are only honed for smartphones. Google is really putting the squeeze on developers who don’t submit to their large screen app quality guidelines, with warnings and reduced visibility.
Google has also streamlined the UI for its Google Play Store on larger devices, with navigation buttons now positioned to the left hand side (closer to a thumb) and an all-round simplified layout.
Finally, Google has implemented a split-screen search system, which displays search results and app details pages side by side. This should prevent too much back-and-forth activity when browsing through apps.
Expect these foldable and tablet-friendly tweaks to start rolling out over the coming weeks.
