Google appears to be rolling out an interesting new feature in the Play Store phone client. Knowing that connectivity is not always guaranteed, the Play Store will now fail gracefully when you try to load a page without data. Not only does the error look nicer than the current one, it offers to notify you when you have a connection again.

This feature appears to still be rolling out—no one on the AP team has it yet. The new error page (above) still has a retry button, but it's the "Notify" option that's most interesting. Tap that, and you'll get a notification when you have a connection again to let you know the page you wanted is available. Tap that, and you're back to the Play Store.

The current error screen

Our tipster is seeing this with Play Store version version 7.9.45.Q-all. However, even updating to the newest version on APK Mirror doesn't activate this feature for me. It's probably one of those slow burn rollouts of which Google is so fond. It could also just be a test that will roll out widely later.

Thanks: Ravindra Thoriya