See apps for your smartwatch, your TV, or your car
It used to be that the Google Play Store was just the place we would go to on our smartphones to download and update apps. Since then, though, things have changed a lot. Google tried to diversify the Play brand into movies, music, and more. It’s an effort that largely failed, but the app store itself has made its way to plenty of non-phone devices: smartwatches, TVs, tablets, Chromebooks, your car; you can even make the argument that Windows PCs also have it. To show apps for these other devices, Google is simplifying its in-app experience to show you apps for your non-phone devices.
9to5Google spotted a new tab called “Other devices” that shows up on your Play Store’s homepage. Selecting it will show three different sub-sections: one for your smartwatch, one for your TV, and one for your car. Each will display app variants for Wear OS, Android TV/Google TV, and Android Auto respectively, and it’ll show nine category-based carousels.
Navigation can be difficult on some of these devices’ respective Google Play Store instances. On smartwatches, for example, it’s doable, but the tiny screen makes it an uncomfortable experience — for downloading an app to my watch, I often have to search for it on my phone and click “install” from there.
This new tab isn’t giving us any new functionality (you could already install apps remotely to other devices, after all), but it does serve as a one-stop shop to see non-smartphone apps you can get and easily download to any of your devices. In a way, Google wants your phone to serve as a central hub to manage all your Google devices.
This new, updated Google Play Store page is rolling out to devices now, but it might take a good while before you see it on your phone.
