The Android Market, home to something silly like 400,000 apps, has gone under the knife, receiving a fairly dramatic facelift. It’s pretty much unrecognisable, man.
The UI has been completely overhauled, making navigation faster and slicker, and there's all-new content in the form of movies and books. Sound good? The update is currently being rolled out to phones with Android 2.2 (Froyo) and above. Er, sorry, Eclair users.
With the new Market, Android users in the US will be able to rent movies and buy books. There are plans to “bring this experience to select countries outside the US soon.” Movies start at $1.99, and will be available to view offline.
The Android Market also boasts “the world’s largest collection of digital books”, with over 3 million titles available.
“To make it fun and easy for users to explore fresh content, we've added our app lists right to the Apps and Games home pages,” explains Eric Chu of the Android Developer Ecosystem.
“Users can now quickly flip through these lists by swiping right or left, checking out what other people are downloading in the Top Paid, Top Free, Top Grossing, Top New Paid, Top New Free, and Trending lists. To keep the lists fresh and relevant, we've made them country-specific for many of the top countries."
The update is expected to “reach all users worldwide in the coming weeks”. If you can’t wait to see it in action, head over to Android Developers and check out the official video.
