A fresh update to the Play Store just started rolling out to devices and it has a few pleasant improvements. The most notable of the changes land squarely in the realm of visual refinements, but there are a couple of functional tweaks, as well. If you can't wait to get your hands on the new version, the download link is at the bottom.

What's New

Let's start with some visual changes.

Landscape Layout For Content

Left: old version, Right: new version

Googler Kirill Grouchnikov called out one of the top changes earlier this morning. Now, when holding a phone in landscape orientation, the content for Play Store entries no longer reaches edge-to-edge and allows a bit of the featured background image to show through on the sides. An earth-shattering change? No... But it looks much better, and now resembles the tablet layout.

Auto-Hiding Action Bar

Left: old version, Right: new version

The other visual change that came with this update now automatically hides action bars as users scroll down the page. This gives users a little more breathing room for the content. Of course, as soon as the page is scrolled up even a little bit, the action bar pops back into view, just like so many other apps in Google's lineup.

Flick-To-Close Gesture Removed

In the old version, when users tapped on the Read More or What's New box, the screen would be replaced with an app description and changelog. That part is still the same. The change is to a little known "feature" where users could leave this screen with a downward flick. By most accounts, people hated this gesture for being confusing, especially since it was easy to trigger accidentally, and not even reliable when it was done intentionally. Good news: it's gone. This screen can only be left by tapping the back button or the 'X' button at the top left. Yes, sometimes it's a good thing to remove features.

Notification Preferences

Left: old version, Right: new version

The next functional change can be found on the Settings screen. Where there had previously been a single checkbox to enable or disable all notifications, there are now a pair of toggles for a little more control over which things you'll see in the list. The first allows users to choose if they should see notifications when there are updates available for their apps, and the second determines if notifications should be shown for apps that have been auto-updated.

'Update All' From A Notification

Finally, Google has added a shortcut to make it as easy as possible to update apps. After a quick teardown, I came across a couple of strings for a notification button that will give one-tap access to update any outdated apps on your device. It's possible this isn't live yet, but it seems like it should be. I haven't had the new version installed long enough for an update notification to appear, but it looks like it will just contain a single button that either reads "Update" or "Update all," depending on the quantity of apps that are awaiting new versions.

<plurals name="notification_update_all_button_text">
<item quantity="other">Update all</item>
<item quantity="one">Update</item>
</plurals>

Update: Here are the Update and Update all buttons.

Thanks to Felipe Pimenta (for Update) and blakew595 (for Update all)!


File Size History

  • com.android.vending-4.0.27.apk 5.89 MB (6,181,458 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.1.6.apk 5.75 MB (6,036,474 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.1.10.apk 5.76 MB (6,040,792 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.2.3.apk 5.76 MB (6,046,580 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.2.9.apk 5.84 MB (6,129,144 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.3.10.apk 5.75 MB (6,036,657 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.3.11.apk 5.75 MB (6,038,575 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.4.21.apk 5.84 MB (6,126,172 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.4.22.apk 5.84 MB (6,126,834 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.5.10.apk 6.62 MB (6,951,714 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.6.16.apk 6.21 MB (6,520,554 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.8.19.apk 6.85MB (7,015,533 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.8.20.apk 6.69 MB (7,015,601 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.8.22.apk 6.69 MB (7,016,172 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-4.9.13.apk 7.18 MB (7,538,155 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-5.0.31-80300031-minAPI9.apk 9.01 MB (9,453,198 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-5.0.32-80300032-minAPI9.apk 9.01 MB (9,455,091 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-5.0.37-80300037-minAPI9.apk 9.05 MB (9,493,814 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-5.1.11-80310011-minAPI9.apk 9.69 MB (10,171,187 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-5.2.12-80321200-minAPI9.apk 11.16 MB (11,702,547 bytes)
  • com.android.vending-5.3.5-80330500-minAPI9.apk 9.83 MB (10,303,033 bytes)

Download

The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.

File Name: com.android.vending-5.3.5-80330500-minAPI9.apk

Version: 5.3.5 (80330500)

MD5: 84e74d873c80917c4fdcb292ae724266