No more Android Market! Only Google Play!
Google Inc has renamed its online storefront for books, music and digital goods which is the company's most recent move to raise itself in the market for the electronic content sales and also a step to compete with Amazon.com Inc and Apple Inc.
Google has changed the name of the store that sells the videos, music, apps and e-books online and on mobile devices from Android Market to Google Play Store on Tuesday. This change is to indicate to the consumers that the company not only offers apps that are meant for the tablets and smartphones powered by the Android platform but also a wide catalog of content.
This name change is after three and half years after the launch of Android Market which was so long a central outlet for the users to download the mobile apps for their devices. Android is in fact the number 1 operating system for the smartphones and it is made use of in the devices manufactured by companies like Samsung, HTC, LG and others.
There are over 450,000 Android apps in that are developed by the third party software developers as compared to the 550,000 apps for the iOS devices like iPhone and iPad. A year and a half ago, Google had expanded the offerings menu of the Android Market to have music, videos and digital books along with apps as they are the markets that offer robust businesses for the rivals like Amazon and Apple.
So long the company had variety of outlets to sell the different types of content like Google Books to sell e-books and Android Market for apps which was confusing from the consumer front. On Tuesday, the company has made an effort to combine all these and all the media applications will feature the Play brand along with their name.