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Google Play credit just got a little more valuable in some countries, thanks to Google expanding Play balances to cover Newsstand subscriptions. However, this change does not benefit anyone who lives in any of the 31 European Economic Area countries.
Since the official launch of App Shortcuts, most of Google's popular apps have been updated to include at least one or two convenient ways to jump to your preferred screens. Play Newsstand was just added to the list with a few shortcuts of its own. There are four new shortcuts including: For You, Library Digest, Magazines, and Read Later. This mostly matches the pages accessible through the bottom nav bar added in v4.0, but trades out the Explore tab for Magazines.
People in eight countries across the Middle East can now subscribe to magazines in the Play Store. Google has updated its list of supported countries with eight additional names:
Newsstand v3.5 Receives Further Visual Tweaks And Pushes Top News To... Well, The Top [APK Download]
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Google Play Newsstand's paid content has been forging its way around the world, trying to catch up with the various Play entities that preceded it. Today marks its arrival in three new countries in East Asia: Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Play Newsstand has been installed over 1 billion times. That's a pretty big number. Let's take a moment to let that sink in.
Play Newsstand is one of those apps that I really like, but I don't find myself launching nearly as often as I probably "should." Not sure why, but I really only use it for magazines, and I often forget that it even does the news thing. Oops.
Before getting Google Play content onto our Android devices, Google has to dot its i's, cross its t's, and shake hands with the right people all over the globe. If a country doesn't have access to certain things in the Play Store yet, chances are Google is still jumping through hoops. After all, the company would love for as many people to use its services as possible.
We know everybody is looking forward to the big Hangouts 4.0 update; and despite a pretty active day for updates, there's no sign that the big green chat app is going to get a big new version today. While we're waiting, a smallish update to the Google Play Newsstand app reminds us that there's plenty of stuff to read in the news. The changes in this release are mostly centered around improving performance and accessibility, and fixing bugs. However, there is one potentially handy new feature making an appearance: home screen shortcuts.
The magazine rack may not be the most crowded part of the Play Store, but that doesn't mean plenty of users haven't been waiting for the most Google-y of periodical reading methods to come to their Android devices. Sure, the free stuff is available worldwide, but subscriptions are available on a country by country basis, and there are still plenty of folks around the globe who don't have access to the service.
When Google released Newsstand, it married content from Currents and Magazines. This brought stories from around the web, along with paid magazine and newspaper subscriptions to one place. The problem, however, is that paid content isn't yet available 'round the world.
We've known the day was coming for a while. The Currents app has finally hit the end of the road. An update to version 2.3 is rolling out through the Play Store that officially closes up shop and points users in the direction of Google Play Newsstand. Subscriptions are automatically transferred over to Newsstand and the old Currents app disables itself after users tap through for the first time.
Two days ago, Google officially launched Newsstand, an app that combines Play Magazines and Currents to offer an all-in-one-place news source. To celebrate the launch of this new product, the company is now offering several magazines for free or at a discounted rate, presumably so potential customers can get their feet wet and see what the mag experience is all about.
We've been hearing/seeing/talking about Newsstand for the past several weeks, and it's officially live as of now. As expected, the app takes the place of Play Magazines, but it also replaces Currents as a news reader. It's basically becoming the go-to place for news, magazines, and online feeds. Everything you want to read all in once place. That's cool.
Earlier this week, we posted the first look at the upcoming Android Play Store app v4.4. As it turns out, besides sporting a new look and a secret message to the teardown team, the updated Play Store is strongly hinting at another new arrival - one we've been waiting for since March. And now we have the updated name for it - Google Play Newsstand.