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We already know these 8 countries will be getting the Pixel 6
Google Store landing pages are already live
Google hasn't up-front announced where the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro will be released, though it's nearly a meme at this point how few markets actually get the company's phones. Whole swaths of even the western world are ignored, though the US, Canada, Japan, and a handful of others are usually guaranteed availability. From delving into the Google Store's regional pages, we've been able to work out which markets will definitely be getting in on the Pixel 6 action.
Google Play Points rolling out to 5 more countries, including Israel and Portugal
Bringing the total to 27 countries
Google's Play Points rewards program, which offers about 1% in rewards points for your Play Store purchases, is now available in 13 more countries, ten of which are in Europe. Last we'd heard about Play Points, there were 9 countries on the list, so the support has more than doubled with these latest additions.
YouTube naturally wants to keep its creators from opting for third-party membership providers like Patreon as ad revenue on the video site continues to fall. Paid features like Super Chat and Super Stickers helped ease the situation by forging another stream of revenue for content creators. The two monetization options will now be available to video makers from 9 additional countries.
Back in 2017, YouTube introduced the Super Chat feature, allowing livestream viewers to support their favorite creators with donations in exchange for pinned comments. It initially launched for viewers in around 40 countries, with this 19-country addition appearing to be the first of its kind.
Most of us live in countries that allow developers to publish and sell apps on the Play Store, but that's far from true for much of the rest of the world. Every few months, Google will update its developer and merchant registration lists with more supported countries, and this time around, there are a total of 21 new additions between the two categories.
I/O's main keynote was a blur of announcement after announcement, so you'll forgive us if we didn't notice this two-second slide where Google's Scott Huffman showed off Assistant's worldwide expansion and explained that it was "now [...] available on over 1 billion devices, in over 30 languages, across 80 countries." We love milestones like this, but many of the countries he pointed out appear to be in beta.
Most apps have their region locks circumvented by simply installing the APK via a third-party source, like APK Mirror. However, YouTube Kids in particular actually has the ability to disable itself if it detects you're not in a supported country. That auto-disabling will no longer be a concern for users in six additional countries, bringing the total to 49.
This might come as a surprise to some of you, but Google's Home products aren't available in very many countries. In fact, availability is actually fairly restricted, especially on the Home Max. Until May, the biggest Home speaker was only available in the US, though Canada and Australia have since joined the list. Now, the Home Max is arriving in the UK, France, and Germany.
We take the ease of billing on the Play Store for granted here in the US, but many other countries don't have as many or as flexible options when it comes to picking up apps, movies, books, or music via the service. But for customers in Colombia, Tanzania, Thailand, Chile, and Peru, new payment methods are now possible. Conversely, France and Saudi Arabia have lost some options.
You might not have known this, but people in other countries don't often get the same features in Google Maps as you may. There are only a handful of countries that support all of Maps's coverage details, including the US, UK, Canada, and several European nations. Google recently added/improved the traffic layer to six countries, but downgraded speed limit availability in seven others.
Google's Assistant and Assistant-powered hardware are a huge convenience, but the limited markets and languages for both have been anything but convenient for many. While Google has been slowly rolling out new countries for Home hardware and more languages for the Assistant over the last year or so, it looks like the company is gearing up to expand its footprint significantly. In a leaked slide from a presentation at the DNI (Digital News Initiative) summit in Amsterdam, Google revealed a literal map of its upcoming plans.
Amazon's paid music streaming service, Music Unlimited, has been live for a little over a year. Since its launch in the US, it has rolled to a few additional countries like the UK, Germany, Austria, and Japan, but today marks its largest expansion to date: 28 countries are getting Amazon Music Unlimited.I know you're looking for the list, so before I babble on about what Music Unlimited is, here are the countries getting AMU:
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- Although Bixby Voice had expanded to 200 countries, India wasn't on the list, but now it is. Samsung officially announced that Bixby Voice is now live in India, but as was previously the case, you'll still have to use US English.
Samsung's controversially received assistant, Bixby, has rolled out its voice command features in Korea and the US, but if you've been just dying to try out in other countries, you're now in luck. Samsung says that the voice commands are available in 200+ countries worldwide including the UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and more.
Google has been improving all of its features to cater to travelers, thanks to Destinations in search, the Google Trips app, and better Google Flights searches. Yesterday these three services got one more upgrade: they're now available in more languages and more countries.
Residents in countries like Bangladesh and Macau can get used to seeing round numbers on their bank statements from Google Play. Google has just rolled out support for setting specific prices in local currencies for eight new countries. Keep in mind, these countries previously had Google Play, and purchases in them were still in their local currency. But, now developers can set specific prices in these places, if they choose to.
The Facebook app and Messenger are commonly criticized for being too large and consuming too many resources. For people in emerging markets with less powerful devices, that can be an issue, which led Facebook to develop Facebook Lite and Messenger Lite. Now, Messenger Lite will be available to download in 132 more countries. Not in 'Murica, though.
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- Like many of you presumed from the existence of the country picker page, this is a feature and not a fluke. A small post from +GoogleStore officially announced yesterday that you can now "send a device across the globe." So Google is marketing this as a way to gift or send items to people you know who live overseas, but we all know it will most likely be used by people outside the US who want to make purchases on the US Google Store and use a friend or forwarding address to bring it over to them. Nevertheless, it's an awesome change. Thanks, +David Schmidt!
I'm 99% sure I shouldn't be writing this article because it might be a bug and it's one I personally, really, really, really do not want Google to fix. But on the off-chance that it is indeed a new feature and for the sake of journalistic integrity (and at the expense of my own benefit), I'm going to tell you that something has changed in the Google Store recently and it's definitely for the better: you can now make purchases in any country's Google Store*.
Remember the Nexus 6P? Do I even need to ask? Just two days ago, we got a glorious look at almost everything the phone is touting, from the 5.7" WQHD display, the camera, the 3450mAh battery, the dual front-facing speakers, and the Snapdragon 810 v2.1 processor. Hot? Maybe, a little bit.
By now, you know all there is to know about the Nexus 5X, don't you? You've seen it in leaked press renders and on Amazon India, you could recite its specs by heart — the 5.2" 1080p display, the Snapdragon 808 processor, the GSM and LTE bands in its FCC documents, and more.