Now that the Google Pixel tablet is out of the wild, the next thing the Mountain View company will have to deal with is setting its house in order. That points to making its app ecosystem more conducive to supporting large screen devices, something that can be considered to be of prime importance besides making available a well put-together tablet hardware. Fortunately, changes are already underway with Google announcing a revamped Play Store that is better suited for tablet operations than ever before.
For instance, for a more seamless browsing experience, the Play Store has implemented a simplified navigation system, relocating it to a left-side navigation rail on larger screens. This strategic move brings menu items closer to users’ thumbs, enhancing accessibility, particularly when holding a device in landscape mode. Additionally, certain aspects of the store have been optimized to improve user exploration and discovery of useful and popular apps. Notably, the Top Charts and Categories sections have been shifted to the Apps and Games Home section. Moreover, on tablets and Chromebooks, the Kids experience has been promoted to a primary tab, recognizing the frequent sharing of these devices with children.
Further, the experience has been revamped to prioritize users’ content and place it front and center. Games featuring high-quality videos will now showcase a video banner at the top of their app listing page, providing users with an immersive glimpse of the gameplay. Furthermore, the layout of apps and games details pages have been reorganized into a multi-column format, elevating more of your content higher up on the page for improved visibility and engagement.
Finally, a new search experience has been introduced, aiming to enhance app discovery and comparison directly from the search results page. On larger screens, a split-screen search layout will be launched, featuring search results and app details pages side by side. This improvement eliminates the need for users to switch back and forth while exploring new apps, streamlining the discovery process for a more efficient and user-friendly experience.
Meanwhile, among the changes Google is expecting developers to implement with their apps include making them conducive to use with a mouse, keyboard, and stylus. Apart from this, the app should easily scale to the larger display of a tablet while retaining its form and functionality. Two-pane tablet layout along with drag and drop support is the other requisites Google wants the tablet-oriented apps to be able to support.
Needless to say, Google has already communicated the same to the developers but isn’t just stopping at that. Rather, the company has also made it known that they are making some changes to the Play Store app ranking algorithm so that those apps that comply with the large screen app guidelines will henceforth feature higher in search rankings and App and Game Home pages.
In any case, it is always good to see Google finally taking steps to make Android more tablet-friendly, something that it seemingly had almost given up on. These updates will be gradually rolled out over the next few weeks, marking only the initial steps in creating a tailored Play Store experience for large screens.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
