Google is testing a curious change to the Play Store on Android that sees a somewhat persistent bottom bar.
Do people really spend that much time in the app store? My experience is I’ve opened the app store once when I installed the phone to install an app. Got maybe 10 seconds of total time in the app store.
Back in the day, it was a really great way to find new apps. And by back in the day, I mean when it was still called the Android Market.
Its initial transition to Play Store in the ICS era also wasn’t too bad. It still kept a lot of the good things from Android Market. But since the launch of Lollipop, things have really deteriorated. It might not have really been the fault of Google, but there’s a lot more noise with subpar apps that crowd the store now. There’s also the incessant ads for sketchy apps featured prominently that leaves a bad aftertaste in your mouth.
Like you, I’ve probably spent like 30 minutes on the Play Store over the last 4 years probably. Every app I want today is either on F-Droid, or already pre-installed on my phone. Or they’re PWAs, and it’s easy to install them just by going to the website.
I agree with this! I remember almost like 8-9 years ago scrolling through the play store was a fun time killer for me. I didn’t really notice it but I started doing less and less until I stopped entirely. I never open it any longer than I need to to install an app now.
Yep. The number of times I’ve gone to the Play Store to discover new apps, in the past few years is exactly zero. Most of the new apps I’ve come across is via some news article or recommendations on Reddit (now Lemmy).
I only go there, usually via an external link, to install new apps or to check for updates for already installed apps.
Google Play is usually way too slow for my liking with applying updates automatically. They tend to sit there for a day or so and are not getting installed for whatever reason, even though they have already been detected.
I haven’t ever seen a useful app in my recommendations, it’s always apps from big tech companies (i. e. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Spotify, Snapchat, …), which I have sub-zero interest in.
They should experiment with moving Updates back to the main screen. I have auto update turned off on a bunch of apps, it shouldn’t be buried in menus (User icon > Manage apps & devices > Updates)
I have auto update turned on and I still need to do manual updates all the time. Moving that option always felt so user hostile to me although I can’t really say why.
Seriously everytime it says there are 0 updates I hit refresh and I have 10+
I just checked. I have auto updates turned on, but I have 22 pending updates after refreshing. One of them is to an app that I thought was broken for the last week (Paramount+). I have no idea why this is an issue.
It generally tries to avoid updating apps while the phone isn’t charging, connected over WiFi and currently idle - I myself only charge the phone when it’s running low and I pretty much never get automatic updates (I have AppNotifier installed so I do know when it happens).
From time to time I let the phone charge overnight (with an alarm set so that the adaptive charging turns on) and it always updates all the apps during the night. I’m pretty sure the two hours it takes for normal charging is just too short to reliably trigger updates.
Idk I just checked again and it had 8 updates, one of them from June 22 on an app that I open and use daily. I don’t leave it plugged in all night every night, but I’m sure I’ve done so at least once since June.
Exactly it’s bizarre.
It probably bugs us so much because we are both capable of figuring out why developers make changes even if we dislike them and yet we cannot come up with a single good reason for this one.
I somehow have a shortcut icon to My Apps on my home screen. I’m using Nova Launcher, but I have no clue if that matters.
Well this sounds awful 🤮
Can’t remember the last time I installed anything from Play store. Every app comes from Github/FDroid/XDA etc & updates through Obtainium. I dont use any Google service & this sounds like get another garbage decision from Google
