Google Play – Android’s New Playground

I’m sure you’ve already heard, but the Android Market has been rebranded as Google Play. Google Play is the reincarnation of the Android Market, which has been growing by leaps and bounds over the last few months, as first music and then books and movies have been added. My only hesitation when the Market became Google Play on my phone was having to agree to the privacy policy once again, which, of course, is the new comprehensive Google privacy policy covering all properties and all accounts. If you think about it, shouldn’t it be called the Google sharing policy instead of privacy policy, since you are basically giving Google permission to share your information across every relationship that you have with them?

Anyway, after agreeing to the terms, I looked for the highly anticipated new branding and new features and found… …the same old Android market with a better name. The one new feature that I really do like however, is sadly temporary, as it is the 7 Days of Google Play sale that is going on since the launch. I always love Android Market sales, as you may remember from my coverage of the 10-cent app sale back in December to celebrate 10,000,000,000 downloads in the Android Market. The only issue I had, at times, was a google play error while processing purchase, which I was able to get around by using the Amazon App Store. Of course the Apple App Store just celebrated 25,000,000,000 downloads, so maybe that’s why Google decided to rebrand the store.

The 7 Days of Google Play sale features selected apps, books and music albums for 25 cents, and movies for 99 cents and other great deals.

25-cent App

Today’s $.25 app is Where’s My Water, by Disney.

49-cent Apps

Google Play is also offering 25 apps for $.49 each. I’ll get some of these and review them in the near future.

25-cent Album

Today’s $.25 book is Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, a new novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of Everything Is Illuminated.

25-cent Book

Today’s $.25 album is Now That’s What I Call Music! 41, a compilation of current hit music.

$5.99 2-Disc Sets

Of course, they’re not 2 discs on your phone, but these are some of the best deals on Google Play today. Check out the great music you can get for a great price.

25-cent Video Rental

The $.25 video rental of the day is Puncture, a movie I have never heard of and probably won’t spend 25 cents and 99 minutes of my life to watch.

99-cent Movie Rentals

The following is a list of the $.99 movie rentals for today:

 

Related articles

• Android Market Now Google Play? My Accountant Will Never Buy It (futurelawyer.typepad.com)
• Google Ditches Android Market, Rebrands its Content as Google Play (mashable.com)
• Android Market morphs into ‘Google Play’ (go.theregister.com)