Finally, Google are coming out to play…and ditching Marketplace.
The Android kings are ditching its Marketplace in favour of cloud-based Play, a one-stop shop for all ‘Droid apps, music, movies and e-book content.
“Starting today, Android Market, Google Music and eBookstore will become part of Google Play,” it confirmed on an official blog.
“We’re eliminating all that hassle with Google Play, a digital entertainment destination where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite music, movies, books and apps on the web and on your Android phone or tablet.”
Google Play will let you store up to 20,000 songs free and buy new tracks from a library, download Android apps and games as per MarketPlace, eBooks and rent thousands of movies, although music and movies service for Android is not yet available in Oz.
These may well be on the way soon though, it hinted on the blog: “our long-term goal is to roll out as many different types of content as possible to people around the world, and we’ll keep adding new content to keep it fresh.”
The move appears to be a bid by the green man to catch up with Apple iTunes and Amazon’s Android Store, which holds all content in the one location.
Apple App Store celebrated its 25 billionth download earlier this week, while Android has over 10 billion apps downloaded at last count.
Your smartphone or tab Android Market app will automatically be upgraded to the Google Play Store app over the coming days, it confirmed, and worry not you can log in with your existing Google account as usual.
To mark the changeover, Android are holding a “7 Days to Play” sale offering a different book and Android app at a special price each day for the next week.
Head over to play.google.com/about for the lowdown.
