Google Play (Store) was created through the merge of what was before the Android Market, Google ebook-store and Google Music. Since then, Google Play has had 1.43 million apps published and more than 50 billion downloads.
One of the best things about Google Play Store is all the free stuff offered on it. It offers a great number of free applications (except those countries under the United State embargo) plus its paid applications. Although it does offer paid applications and other products, the amount of free applications is enough to really satisfy any user.
In order for developer to offer an app they are required to pay a 25$ registration fee. This fee will provide developers with the Google Play Developer Account. According to Google statements, these fees are used to encourage the publishing of high quality applications. Developers are paid either via Google Wallet or Adsense (in some countries). They are paid 70 percent of the application price, while the other 30 goes to the distribution partner and operating fees.
In terms of Music, Google Play Store holds more than 35 million songs, with around 50,000 at no cost whatsoever, with the rest of them ranging between 0.69$ and .129$ through Google’s service called Google Play Music, which is currently available in at least 58 countries.
Many readers have now taken to reading digital formats instead of the classic book with physical pages. For this consumer niche, Google has come well-prepared, as it now offers more than 5 million titles. These are store in the cloud and can be downloaded in PDF and EPUB format. The service is now available in more than 65 countries. Same as in the Music section there are paid and free ebooks. However, regardless of the kind of book being downloaded, Google will require payment information.
The interesting thing here is that not only can we download books, but also upload them, with a storage limit of 1,000 books on the cloud. You can either upload them for your friends, or you could also have the choice to publish it on Google Play (only if it’s of your authorship) in order to earn some money.
There are thousands of tv series and movies of different genres such as drama, comedy, action animation and documentary (some in HD). You can rent or purchase the titles and watch them either on the web or on the special application made for Android. So far the movie service has reached over 70 countries such as Argentine, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, Indonesia, Poland, Russia and so on. However, the TV service is limited to only 8 countries: the UK, the US, Canada, France, Austria, Australia, Germany and Japan.
For the avid readers, Google Play Store offers a wide range of newspapers and magazine, which are accessed through free or paid subscriptions. These can be read on Newsstand. Some of the countries where paid subscriptions are available in more or less some 30 countries, such as Argentina, Peru, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, etc.
All applications, music, ebooks and games come with a detailed description of the system requirements for the user to be able to use, read or watch the downloaded file. Besides users have the possibility to leave feedback on the file downloaded so that other users have the chance to review the application/video/music/ebook before downloading it.
Before March 2015 Goolge Play used to have a Devices section, where the user could purchase different kinds of Google-branded devices like Chromebooks, etc. On March 11, 2015 a separate Google hardware store, called Google Store, was introduced to the market.
For all the users, it is not necessary to go to any specific webpage in order to access all these amazing entertainment, as Google Play has its own application installed in almost all Android cellphones by default. You will never have to update it or anything as it does it automatically. And in the rare case it is not pre-installed in your phone, you can simple download the Google Play APK from any website (though I would recommend you to stick with the APK mirror webpage as it is the safest. And if you want to learn how to install it, you can go back to some of our previous post where it is all explained).