As introduced in March, Google Play customers on Android are beginning to see the Films & TV retailer disappear from the app.
Replace 6/21: Following the March announcement and first stories on the finish of Might, Google is now broadly eradicating the Play Retailer’s Films & TV tab.
It is gone from a number of units and accounts that we checked this night within the US. Most individuals now solely have 4 tabs within the backside bar on telephones, whereas the part can also be gone from the Chrome OS and Android pill Play Retailer, which is ready for a much bigger redesign.
Unique 5/30: On cellular, Google now not desires individuals to browse, search, purchase, or hire tv exhibits and films from the Play Retailer software. As a substitute, Google TV is the supposed substitute the place you can even see your library, whereas it was lately up to date with a “Highlights” information feed.
As a part of this variation, there at the moment are adjustments to previous purchases, household sharing, funds (together with utilizing Play credit score and reward playing cards), refunds, Play Factors, or your wishlist. There’s additionally no change to the lately redesigned net interface.
In the meantime, the Play Retailer on Android is now targeted on purposes, video games, ebooks, and audiobooks. Customers at the moment are down to 3 tabs — Video games, Apps, and Books — within the backside bar, although they could have Gives or Play Cross as a fourth. It does make navigation ever so barely cleaner.
The primary stories of Films & TV disappearing got here in final week, and there are extra right now, specifically from Europe. Google has equally up to date its authentic announcement put up:
Replace: Films and TV is now within the strategy of being faraway from the Google Play app
It seems just like the removing will stretch into June.
9to5Google’s Take
The corporate clearly thinks that Google TV is the higher place for media, and this drive very a lot began with the brand new Chromecast in 2020. In apply, it is considerably annoying to now not have a unified place for all digital content material on Android, although this began with the demise of Play Music a number of years in the past.
The expertise of utilizing the Google TV app just isn’t a departure in any sense from the Play Retailer expertise, and having fast entry to “Your Stuff” is handy. That mentioned, I am now discovering myself trying to find motion pictures/exhibits within the YouTube app, which is already on my homescreen, and making purchases there. YouTube lately doubled down on its media interface, and that is perhaps an unintended consequence of all this variation.
Extra on Google Play:
FTC: We use earnings incomes auto affiliate hyperlinks. Extra.
Try 9to5Google on YouTube for extra information:
