JEK
Senior Insider
http://market.android.com/
Google Fixes Its App Store
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Updated 5:50 p.m. with additional reporting from the event.
For a company that is all about organizing and searching information, Google’s Android Market app store has been surprisingly unorganized and hard to search. That changed Wednesday.
At an event at Google headquarters, where Google showed off Honeycomb, its newest version of the Android operating system made for tablets, Google introduced the Android Market Web store. For the first time, Android users can search and buy apps from Web browsers, not just from cellphones. And the store can be searched and is and much easier to navigate, with a more sophisticated design with pictures and user reviews.
When users click to buy an app, it simultaneously downloads to their phone. That is when “some of the real cloud magic happens,” said Chris Yerga, Android’s engineering director for cloud services. “There’s no wires, no syncing with computers, none of that sort of nonsense.”
People can also share apps via Twitter. And, addressing an ongoing frustration for developers and Android users, developers can now set prices in each currency instead of charging American customers in euros, for instance.
Finally, Google announced that it will offer in-app purchases, so developers can sell things like virtual goods or premium versions of their apps. Disney, for instance, showed an Android version of Tap Tap Revenge that is coming this spring, once in-app purchases begin.
The new online app store comes as Google prepares for Android tablet computers to hit the market. Google first previewed Honeycomb, its version of Android software for tablets, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. On Wednesday, it showed it off again on a slim, black touch-screen tablet made by Motorola.
All Android cellphone apps that have been built in accordance with Google’s recommended guidelines will work on the bigger-screen tablets, said Hugo Barra, the Android product management director. Honeycomb offers additional features like the ability to move around pieces of an app and open windows within an app.
For example, in the Gmail app, when someone clicks on a message, the inbox moves to the left-hand side and the message fills the center of the screen. In the Pulse news reading app, clicking on a story opens it in a window, but readers can still scroll through all the stories on the main page.
There are also improved graphics, so people can simulate flipping through the pages of a book, for instance, or view 3D buildings on Google Maps. Google showed a game involving a monster barreling through the streets and hurling cars that looked like a movie.
The camera — which can take outward-facing or front-facing photos and enable video chat — includes settings for things like the flash, exposure and white balance. One of the new mobile apps, from CNN, uses a bunch of the new features so people can flip through stories, move around pieces of the app and submit their own photographs or video footage.
“From a user’s perspective,” Mr. Barra said, “what really matters is despite all of the computer science we have to enable what you just saw, it’s really just about quick and easy access to important information.”
Google Fixes Its App Store
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Updated 5:50 p.m. with additional reporting from the event.
For a company that is all about organizing and searching information, Google’s Android Market app store has been surprisingly unorganized and hard to search. That changed Wednesday.
At an event at Google headquarters, where Google showed off Honeycomb, its newest version of the Android operating system made for tablets, Google introduced the Android Market Web store. For the first time, Android users can search and buy apps from Web browsers, not just from cellphones. And the store can be searched and is and much easier to navigate, with a more sophisticated design with pictures and user reviews.
When users click to buy an app, it simultaneously downloads to their phone. That is when “some of the real cloud magic happens,” said Chris Yerga, Android’s engineering director for cloud services. “There’s no wires, no syncing with computers, none of that sort of nonsense.”
People can also share apps via Twitter. And, addressing an ongoing frustration for developers and Android users, developers can now set prices in each currency instead of charging American customers in euros, for instance.
Finally, Google announced that it will offer in-app purchases, so developers can sell things like virtual goods or premium versions of their apps. Disney, for instance, showed an Android version of Tap Tap Revenge that is coming this spring, once in-app purchases begin.
The new online app store comes as Google prepares for Android tablet computers to hit the market. Google first previewed Honeycomb, its version of Android software for tablets, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. On Wednesday, it showed it off again on a slim, black touch-screen tablet made by Motorola.
All Android cellphone apps that have been built in accordance with Google’s recommended guidelines will work on the bigger-screen tablets, said Hugo Barra, the Android product management director. Honeycomb offers additional features like the ability to move around pieces of an app and open windows within an app.
For example, in the Gmail app, when someone clicks on a message, the inbox moves to the left-hand side and the message fills the center of the screen. In the Pulse news reading app, clicking on a story opens it in a window, but readers can still scroll through all the stories on the main page.
There are also improved graphics, so people can simulate flipping through the pages of a book, for instance, or view 3D buildings on Google Maps. Google showed a game involving a monster barreling through the streets and hurling cars that looked like a movie.
The camera — which can take outward-facing or front-facing photos and enable video chat — includes settings for things like the flash, exposure and white balance. One of the new mobile apps, from CNN, uses a bunch of the new features so people can flip through stories, move around pieces of the app and submit their own photographs or video footage.
“From a user’s perspective,” Mr. Barra said, “what really matters is despite all of the computer science we have to enable what you just saw, it’s really just about quick and easy access to important information.”