Google Revamps Play Store: Google revamps Play Store design for foldables and tablets, here’s what has changed – Times of India

“Today, we’re introducing four major updates to help users find high-quality large-screen apps on Play: refreshed app listing pages, ranking and quality improvements, streamlined store navigation, and a split-screen search experience,” said Allison Chang, product manager, Google Play.
Refreshed app listing pages for high-quality apps

Google has redesigned the store listing page. Games with high-quality videos will now have a video banner at the top of their app listing page, allowing users to experience the gameplay in an immersive way. Additionally, the games and apps have been reorganised to show detailed pages in a multi-column layout.
Ranking and quality improvements
Google has made several ranking changes to boost quality across Play to promote high-quality apps on large screens. Apps and games that adhere to large screen app quality guidelines will be ranked higher in search and Apps and Games Home. This will help users find apps that resize well, aren’t letterboxed, and support both portrait and landscape orientations. Editors’ Choice and other curated collections and articles will also consider these criteria going forward, creating new features for optimised apps.
Last year, Google announced its app listing warnings and reduced visibility for apps and games that do not meet Play’s per-device technical quality bar. As per Google, it “extends phone technical quality requirements for phones to large screens, and affects apps and games with an 8% user-perceived crash rate or 8% user-perceived ANR rate on the user’s device.”
These warnings will appear on the app details page, with the goal of setting user expectations for how apps will look and function on their devices. These changes will be rolled out in late August.
New content forward formats will use form factor-specific screenshots, videos, and descriptions to display a preview of the app experience and help users make install decisions. As part of this change, apps with large screen assets that follow Google’s content quality guidelines can take advantage of richer formats and occupy more screen real estate on Play homepages.
Streamlined store navigation
Google has simplified the store navigation and moved to a left-side navigation rail on larger screens. This puts menu items closer to users’ thumbs and makes them more accessible, especially when holding a device in landscape mode.
There are also certain aspects of the store easier to find to help users discover useful and popular apps. For example, the Top Charts and Categories sections have been moved to Apps and Games Home. On tablets and Chromebooks, Google has made the Kids’ experience a primary tab since these devices are often shared with children.
Split-screen search
With the split-screen search experience on large screens, displaying search results and app details pages side by side can prevent users from switching back and forth when exploring new apps and streamlines the discovery process.
Availability
Google has said that these changes will begin rolling out over the coming weeks.