Google Play

Google Play, originally the Android Market, is a digital distribution platform operated by Google. It serves as the official app store for the Android operating system, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android SDK and published through Google. Google Play also serves as a digital media store, offering music, magazines, books, movies, and television programs. It previously offered Google hardware devices for purchase until the introduction of a separate online hardware retailer, Google Store, on March 11, 2015. Applications are available through Google Play either free of charge or at a cost. They can be downloaded directly to an Android or Google TV device through the Play Store mobile app, or by deploying the application to a device from the Google Play website. Many applications can be targeted to specific users based on a particular hardware attribute of their device, such as a motion sensor (for motion-dependent games) or a front-facing camera (for online video calling). Google Play was launched on March 6, 2012, with the merger of Android Market, Google Music, and Google eBookstore, marking a shift in Google's digital distribution strategy. The services operating under the Google Play banner are: Google Play Music, Google Play Books, Google Play Newsstand, Google Play Movies & TV, and Google Play Games. The Google Play store has reached over 1.43 million apps published and over 50 billion downloads. Google Play makes free-of-charge applications available worldwide (except countries under United States embargoes), while paid applications are available in 135 countries. Applications can be installed from the device using the Google Play Store app or through the Google Play website on a PC. According to AppBrain Stats, there are over 1,400,000 applications available as of November 2014, of which over 1,200,000 are free and over 200,000 are paid. Google seems to remove low-quality apps from the store roughly once a quarter, when the number of available apps go down. As of November 2014, developers in 61 countries were able to distribute paid applications on Google Play. To distribute apps, developers have to pay $25 as registration fee for a Google Play Developer Console account. Google states that this fee is charged to encourage higher quality products on Google Play Application developers can control which countries an app distributed in, as well as the pricing for the app and in-app purchases in each country. Developers receive 70 percent of the application price, while the remaining 30 percent goes to the distribution partner and operating fees. Revenue earned from the Google Play is paid to developers via Google Wallet merchant accounts, or via Google AdSense accounts in some countries. Google Play allows developers to release early versions of apps to a select group of users, as alpha- and beta-testing versions. This allows the developer to fix any issues before the app is released widely. Google Play also allows developers to release updates in stages, first to a subset of users and then progressively to larger portions of the userbase, ensuring that the smallest number of users are affected by any issues missed in testing. Some carriers, such as Sprint, offer direct carrier billing for application purchases. Purchases of unwanted applications can be refunded within 15 minutes of the time of download. Applications meeting certain design criteria set by Google can be made compatible for Android Wear and Android TV devices, and for the Google Fit platform.[citation needed] On 17 March 2009, about 2,300 applications were available in Android Market, according to T-Mobile chief technical officer Cole Brodman.[ On 10 May 2011, during the Google I/O, Google announced that Android Market had 200,000 applications listed and 4.5 billion applications installed.[19] In October 2012, Google announced that Google Play had 700,000 apps available to download, matching the number of apps in Apple's App Store.[20] On 24 July 2013, Google announced that the Play Store now had one million applications listed and it had over 50 billion downloads