Google Is Killing Play Movies & TV, Will Only Have Three Video Stores Left
Enlarge Google reader comments 92 withGoogle kills productGoogle is killing off the last vestiges of Google Play Movies & TV, a service that sold premium Hollywood films and TV shows as part of Google's once-cohesive string of Google Play content stores. The company emailed users of Android TV to say that the "Google Play Movies & TV app will no longer be available on your Android TV device from 05 October 2023. You can continue to buy or rent movies directly through the Shop tab on your Android TV."
Play Movies has been going through a slow death as Google shuffles around its media content. The smartphone Play Movies app became "Google TV" in 2022, and that same year, the Play Store app was stripped of movie and TV sales. On third-party smart TVs (this is a different category than today's Android TV announcement) the app was killed in 2021. On Android TV, the new "Shop" tab seems to just be an OS-integrated Google TV content store.
If you think this sounds confusing, you're not alone. Google's support page reflects the ridiculous state of Google's video apps, instructing users that "in Your Library, you can find content that you bought from: Google Play Movies & TV, YouTube, Android TV, Google TV." How any normal person is supposed to understand that pile of Google media brands, and how it works across phones, the web, and various smart TV OSes, is beyond me.
Google Play was once a media empire at Google, with the Google Play Store (for Android apps and games), Play Music, Play Books, Play Newsstand, and Play Movies and TV. The idea back in the 2010s was to compete with the digital media revolution Apple created with iTunes, the iPod, and the iPhone. ITunes had all the content people could want, and Android needed a similar setup, so a ton of content stores were launched by Andy Rubin's Android team. Most of the media stores started in the Android Market but then pivoted to a more Google-wide offering with the launch of Google Play branding in 2012.
AdvertisementAt the peak of its powers, the Play Store had tabs for apps, music, books, magazines, movies & TV, and a "devices" hardware store, all in a single interface. Back then, Google Play felt like a cohesive platform and a top-tier ecosystem. Nothing at Google is ever stable, though, and the company's other media stakeholders sought to pick apart what the Android Team had built. The Google Store took over hardware duties from the Play Devices section in 2015. Magazines shut down in 2018 and was replaced by Google News, and after two years, Google News gave up on the idea of selling content. Play Music was shut down in 2020, and users were pushed to YouTube Music, which, even after the miserable transition, is still an all-around inferior product. Hollywood content is now split between YouTube (which offers à la carte movie purchases), Google TV (which is both Google's TV operating system and an Android app), and a still-surviving "Movies & TV" section that is only on the web Play Store. The one Google Play child no one seems to want is Play Books, which is still awkwardly surviving as the lone content store in the Play Store app.
While there is still that Play Store web section, I guess it's time to call it for the Google Play Movies & TV brand. All the apps will be dead in October, and presumably, that means the now-useless store will be booted from the web interface as well. Everyone wants to get this video content on their smart TVs now, and smart TV vendors get to pick and choose what apps they pre-load. That makes standalone "me too" Google apps like Play Movies a tough sell, but Google has a video app all the vendors want: YouTube. During a carriage dispute with Roku, Google figured out that packing all its video content into a single YouTube app would ensure that all of its video content would be carried by every smart TV vendor. It built YouTube TV—the $73-a-month cable TV replacement service—into the normal YouTube app, and it makes sense to keep purchases of Hollywood content in there, too. For that to happen, the Play Movies & TV brand needs to die.
Google Play Credits Aren't Working For Some Android Users For Purchases
Credits for the Google Play Store can come from a variety of sources, like gift cards, but if you're trying to make a purchase right now, you might be left with nothing but an error message.
As highlighted by the folks over at Android Police, some Android users are currently completely unable to make purchases that attempt to use Google Play credits for a part, or the whole purchase. The issue doesn't seem to be universal, but it's not exactly isolated, either. There are posts here or there on the web regarding the issue, with a few users mentioning it in a support forum post and quite a few more on a Reddit thread around the game Ingress. In one case, an error message appeared reading: An unexpected error has occurred. Please try again later. [OR-DFGT-02] I actually ran into this issue a few days ago while trying to make an in-app purchase. Trying to apply my few dollars of built-up Google Play credits from Opinion Rewards was seeing the purchase fail every time, but switching over to my credit card worked just fine. Google has yet to formally acknowledge the problem, but an old support post regarding failed Play Store transactions has been marked as a "trending issue" as a result of the ongoing problem. If you've been seeing this issue, let us know in the comments below! FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.An Early Google Chrome Web Store Preview Shows A 'modern' Redesign
Google opens its door on a preview for the Chrome Web Store redesign, bringing an aesthetic similar to the Play Store.
While the main page removes the category sidebar, the preview's "extensions" and "themes" pages bring it back.
Google hasn't stated a timeframe for its official arrival, however, it's looking to users and developers for feedback before doing so.
Google is working on revamping the design of its Chrome Web Store, and an early preview gives us a look at what's to come. As spotted by 9to5Google, the new Chrome Web Store redesign is pretty similar, aesthetically, to the Play Store on mobile and desktop. The easiest to spot change is how the new Web Store fills the view of a PC's monitor horizontally, doing away with the category sidebar.
Instead, right beneath the initial side-scrolling rotating list of extension highlights, users can find "top categories." The page then recommends extensions based on your habits with others following the further down you go.
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Google Chrome's Web Store redesign preview.
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The new
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The new
Hopping over into the "extensions" and "themes" pages quickly brings back that old sidebar full of categories. On these pages, Chrome's new Web Store lists broader categories with sub-categories directly below so users can click on exactly what they're looking for from the get-go.
Both pages offer recommendations that you may be interested in. However, unlike the extensions page, which offers a "you might like" section, the themes page forgoes such a section.
Much of the design choices made for the Chrome Web Store's upcoming redesign are pretty standard (now) for Google. Much of it fits the theme of its Material You design language, with rounded corner boxes to boot.
9to5 also mentions a Google Chrome community post that quietly detailed the preview a few days ago. The company states the goal for the Web Store redesign is to usher in "a modernized interface, personalized extensions, and curated recommendations."
There's no word on when users can expect the new look to officially arrive, but if you're curious, you can check it out for yourself. Furthermore, Google is looking to collect as much feedback from users and developers before making the switch for good.
