The Android Market is dead
Google has just announced that the Android Market is out, at least in name, replaced by the more wide-reaching Google Play. With the rebranding, Google hopes to showcase that the Android Market has grown beyond the application marketplace the current name entails. They’ve since added Google Books, Google Music, and Movies to the foray, and wanted a way to consolidate those efforts under a single brand name.
Starting today, customers who visit the Android Market website will begin to be redirected to the Google Play store. Those feeling adventurous or simply wanting to check out what Google Play has in store for you can point your browsers to
play.google.com to check out the new branding. Though the branding certainly closely mirrors what is currently found on Google’s Android Market web front, the new Google Play focuses on the other services Google features, since most people who visit Google’s web store are likely there to search for music, movies, or books.
The Google Play change will occur on the web version of the market today, and will be pushed out to Android smartphones and tablets over the next week or so.
Your experience with Google Play will also vary depending on where you’re located. quoting the
Official Google Blog:
Google now seeks to promote the change by offering a sale on 25 popular apps. The price of these apps, mostly games, have been cut to 49 cents and includes Endomondo Sports Tracker. Among the games that are now available at 49 cents are EA's Dead Space and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, N.O.V.A. 2 from Gameloft, Full Fat's NFL Flick Quarterback, and Asphalt 6 : Adrenaline from GameLoft. For those who like to dabble with third party virtual QWERTY keyboards, the SwiftKey X Keyboard is also 49 cents. For a complete list of apps on sale, visit this link. This rebranding will however be not limited to only the web version but will make its way onto Android based mobiles/tablets pretty soon as well. Android market, Google Music and Google eBook store had already replaced with Google Play store. For example, Android market redirects to Google Play Store, Google eBook store redirects to Google Play Book Store and Google Music redirects to Google Play Music Store. Since Google Music and Google ebook store are not available in India, Google Play will be redesigned and rebranded Android Market. The new app Google Play shall soon be rolling to all Android devices running on 2.2 Froyo and above through OTA (Over the air) in phased manner. Source : Google Play via Intomobile