FeaturedNews

Official: Android Market Changes Detailed

87

The new Android Market website is now live and there are a botload of features (see what I did there?). Let’s take a look at some of the specific features you should know about. First of all, the Android Market website is now a full browsing client for Android Market, displaying every app you could possibly imagine with categories, searching, suggestions and much more.

If you take a look at Phandroid on Android Market you can see my favorite feature by far: installing directly from the web.

You MUST be logged into the same Google Account that you use with your Android device for this to work, but if you’re logged in it will show you permissions, allow you to continue if you agree, select a credit card, and instantly the app will begin downloading on your phone should you choose to continue. And oh yeah… we’re finally seeing the opportunity for in-app purchases!

The entire interface is clean and enjoyable with beautiful screenshots, other applications from the developer or similar apps, reviews and all the awesomeness you would expect with Android Market on the web. The also make it incredibly easy to tweet an app:

For example, I just tweeted the Phandroid App so RETWEET IT!

I’m still not seeing promotional videos, but perhaps that’s because I haven’t found an app that offers one. I’ve also not been able to log into my Google Account to directly install apps onto my phone…

Can you get in? What are YOUR favorite features of the new Android Market?

[Update]: The Android team says they’re working hard on getting the full features of the Android market up and running. Apparently, it’s working for some but not all. We’re sure propagation hasn’t finished yet. Sit tight, guys.

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

[Update] In-App Purchases Now Possible in Android Market

Previous article

SwiftKey for Android Tablets Looks Like Tron [VIDEO]

Next article

You may also like

87 Comments

  1. i cannot get in as well

  2. Same issue here :-(

  3. That error is making me very mad.

  4. Same here! I’m sure they’re working to fix it.

  5. Must not really be ready.

  6. nope, cant log in yet, my guess is its got a bug or its locked to outside users until later today.

  7. Nope didnt work, was kept trying it since the first mention it in the press conf.

  8. Same here….Can’t log in…Not cool guys

  9. Invalid request, lies, come on Google. I guess it’s all of those Android users signing in… Oh well, I’ll wait patiently!

  10. (Once they get the Sign In working) So much for AppBrain. Heh.

  11. I can’t log in yet. Tried many different approaches with no luck.

  12. Nope, can’t get in either, neither can a bunch of others: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?tid=0f642e34a57a274b&hl=en

  13. Come onnnn google.

  14. I have seen some promo videos, I think a lot of apps may still not have them. I can’t log in either :-(

  15. invalid request u.u

  16. I’ve installed three apps so far via web, I don’t know why you guys can’t log in, I’m in.

  17. I have two main questions regarding the new features:
    .
    1. They said that the My Account feature (which nobody can access right now) tracks all purchased apps. Does it also track free apps that you’ve installed, so if you switch phones or something you can get back up and running quickly without having to remember all of your free apps?
    .
    2. Will the advanced search options offer more granular controls than what’s available now? I’m only seeing specifying between free and paid apps, and sorting by popularity vs. relevance. Finer-grained search controls are desperately needed, and frankly are to be expected from Google.

  18. I believe I saw a free app in the list, on the webcast, so that would be a yes.

  19. I love how people get mad at something they can’t do, when it’s something they didn’t know existed less than 12 minutes ago. I can’t sign in either…. give it a minute….. or two

  20. @Bobby J if you have a 2.2 phone and you switch to another phone all of your apps are downloaded and installed on that new phone automatically as it is right now.

  21. You’re not alone, I can’t sign into my account on there either! Looks nice though!

  22. yeah, they probably didn’t want a flood of users to slow down their demo.

  23. Invalid request.

  24. Where is the sorting? Where is the filtering??? How is this any different than what I already have on my phone?

  25. Hold on, maybe sign in issues are due to the way we are holding our computers? Happens a lot with stuff that is ‘really cool’. Oh wait……

  26. @Travis – AppBrain isn’t needed anymore. I upgraded from the Orignal Droid to the Nexus S over the weekend. As soon as I entered my gmail account into the Nexus S it downloaded all my apps that were on my Droid. It also transferred my custom wallpaper and a few other settings. I’m not sure if this occurs when installing a new ROM, but I hope it does.

  27. i think google tried to track us and remotely delete the app that we “pirately” installed using apk manager or astro … sadly no google music … quite short press event … should add more .. like last sec preparation presentation lold

  28. Gun Bros has a promo video

  29. My company is blocking the website :(

  30. @Storm14K aka Phil: Yeah, I ran into that a couple months back, when my original N1 died and I got HTC to send me a new one. However, I’m positive that only my purchased apps were restored, so I had to remember all the free ones I had installed and get them manually myself. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, since I didn’t necessarily want all the free apps I had installed over the months back, but it’d be nice if they were tracked somewhere so I could pick and choose myself.

  31. Since there are no sorting and filtering options, I’ll just sick with appbrain and androidapplications. com.

  32. It looks like its working for some, but for most (including myself) it’s not working.

    http://twitter.com/#!/AndroidDev/status/32880741960384512

  33. finally, the recent market version has issues doesnt find any pack, i hope this update fixes thats bugs, in a while i will try to download it

  34. Oh man, this is a huge upgrade. This is what I’ve been waiting for, as have many devs (I’m sure).

  35. the same error here (invalid request), regards from Chile
    i thought it was due to my country

  36. Ratnok, they showed filtering and sorting during the event.

  37. The appbrain devs gotta be foaming at the mouth over this. Google changed the market some time ago so that appbrain could no longer do OTA installs. Bummer for the appbrain devs.

  38. Appbrain couldn’t scale. Rovio gave them an exclusive on Angry Birds and as this blog reported, they just couldn’t handle the traffic. That’s probably what took Google so long(this was announced at Google i/o in May) – scaling for the number of users and the kind of features they have must be a huge(and interesting) engineering challenge.

  39. I can’t log in either!

  40. Its working now, finally got logged in. About to push the first app to my phone to try out :)

    Ok didnt push the app to my phone. Bummer

  41. FYI, there’s another change that I haven’t seen detailed anywhere yet. The buckets for numbers of app downloads have been updated, at least for the website. Whereas before the top two categories for number of downloads were 100k-250k and 250k+, the website offers these categories:
    100k-500k
    500k-1M
    1M-5M
    5M-10M
    10M-50M
    I can’t find anything listed as having over 50 million downloads, so I don’t know if the top tier is 50M+ or if it keeps climbing. I just wanted to share this tidbit that I noticed. :)

  42. Really nice.. am sure they will get the sign in fixed shortly.

  43. I figured a way around the invalid request error, simply use the base url: https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=androidmarket

  44. Here is what worked for me. I tried signing in and got the invalid message. I then signed in to my google account, same as the one I use for my phone. THen I went back to the market home page and tried again. I automatically got the invalid error…BUT I kept hitting refresh and eventually it redirected me and I was signed in.

    Dont know if it was a fluke or not..

  45. Its up and working now

  46. ok i clicked at the bottom “my market account ” and i’m signed in now

  47. Working for me now…installed app successfully!

  48. Promotional videos are there. Check out Gun Bros

  49. What? No 250 MB download just to use it? Automatic WIN!

  50. as of 2pm CT site is not downloading to original DROID

  51. Well it let me log in but not letting me install anything.. using NS

  52. go go google go ! .. working now.

  53. Logged in with no problem. I noticed that it says installed on every app I have ever used in the past regardless if I have them installed now or not.

  54. Installing an app from my desktop worked fine on my Nexus S. Huzzah!

  55. Ahh its working on my NS now…. funny 2 mins ago I was getting ….

    ava.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: com.google.net.rpc.RpcException: DEADLINE_EXCEEDED;null;StartTimeMs=1296677442786;NoResponse;TCP;Deadline=10.0;CliLog=256;SrvLog=256;FailFast;ReqSecLevel=integrity;RespFormat=UNCOMPRESSED;/MixerService.CheckPurchasePermission;LastReqID=351be68807c675bd;LastGlobalID=44dfe8057d993905;Server=10.230.136.33:25657;Originator=finsky;Tag=

  56. Update to what I posted earlier. It shows installed for any app that I previously had installed but when going to my account, it only shows what I currently have installed. Clicked install on two items and two min later when I looked at my phone they were downloading. :)

  57. Can anyone confirm if this works with their rooted device?

  58. In-app purchases are bloody dangerous, and I hope that there either is an account-wide setting, or as the bare minimum a specific, explicit permission the application declares for that to be possible.

    I’ve heard more than enough horror stories from people letting their kids play a seemingly innocuous game and ending up with hundreds of USD/GBP in bills.

  59. Yes Jean it works on rooted devices. Rooted and running Bionix-V and it works as advertised.

  60. Does this mean that Android devices without Market support can now get apps over the web?

  61. Does not work with my rooted Droid running Cyanogen 6.2. It flashes the little icon like its downloading for a split second, then disappears and nothing further happens. No error, no app. Website shows it as installed successfully – I beg to differ!

  62. yes – I just installed 2 apps in australia with a rooted milestone running Cyanogen mod 6

  63. Downloaded, but not installed. Shall try another application. Rooted SLCD Incredible with CM7 Nightlies.

  64. http://screencast.com/t/QuJ9nbu6CSuT I can buy apps even :) . not sure why not on my hero, but I already bought one D:

  65. Sweeeeeeet!!! Just tested it with the Chase mobile app and it works a treat, signed in, selected install on App and 30 seconds later it is downloaded to my phone.

  66. Alright, downloaded and installed an app, failed the first time with Error Code 18. Poop.

  67. Yes confirmed, works on rooted Mytouch3G

  68. @Khalid – Well I’m on the market right now. If you can show me how to sort by rating or number of downloads, or filter by apps2sd compatiblity or most popular apps this week, if appreciate it. Otherwise, I’ll stick with appbrain which does all this and more.

  69. Okay, the sorting and filtering is basic, I’ll give you that. In order to use it you need to search for something and then click search options. It’s very limited, but you can sort by popularity and filter by device compatibility(if you’ve more than one device tied to your account) and whether it’s paid or free.

    It is basic now, but I’d imagine Google will be adding to it. Even if they never improve it(which I doubt) at least you know that unlike appbrain they can actually handle the traffic of a massively popular application and push downloads directly from the web; I think someone mentioned earlier that they can’t do that now. Because of Google, sure, but it’s their system so their rules.

  70. Do any of you guys honestly use Twitter? Maybe it’s just me, but I kind of picture teenaged girls using
    twitter the most. Seems kind of pointless to me (being a grown man and all) but oh well, to each his own.
    I do like the market online now. Easier to research apps.

  71. The http seams to be broke….. Im not to sure about it

  72. Now i keep getting server error whenever i choose a category, plus i dont see “Featured, top paid, top free” panel. Lastly, the games/apps reviews seems to show only the reviews within my area and not globally

  73. works fine for me. i like it. it is quite easy to search and find apps this way.

  74. Works great on my Bionic

  75. THAT IS SO LEGIT! Works great for me.

  76. New features great. No doubt crApple will copy them immediately keep up with Android. Go Android!

  77. So I guess my question is what if you have more than one device using the same Google account? Would it install the app on both at the same time?

    It would be nice if I could differentiate my install profiles on a per device basis, but still have the same account. Is this possible?

  78. Awesomw stuff from google!!! just remote-smoothly installed beautifull live weather on my desire……. its market made ultra-easy!!

  79. It works just fine now, it had hiccups for about an hour but I’m suspecting it was somehow syncing with the phone, once it was done it worked a treat, 2 more apps installed that way :D

  80. Android’s looking more like Microsoft all the time. Let competitors (like AppBrain) innovate, then copy their best ideas and claim you invented it.

  81. It still sucks. The company of databases should have filters, and an advanced search capability. Clicked live wallpapers, hit top free and up pops all top free apps. Not wallpapers. Useless. Its easier to use the main google search to find out about apps that might be what I want. The app store on the phone and the web are both of poor design.

  82. You’d think a company that made their mark on search would know how to do search right, but apparently not.

  83. @ Android Fan:

    Apple copying Android??? Please tell me you’re kidding….

  84. Wow that picture looks so similar to the Apple app store, which I guess is a good thing in a way as it is a common design,but did they have to copy it so much tho? I thought open source programing was meant to open up avenues of creativity and innovation, not plagiarize and paraphrase code and claim you did it? Maybe I am a being a bit harsh but if I turned this in at a school I would be called on it. I feel all this copy catting needs to stop and some one do something unique for once. I am not an apple fan boy trolling I am just sick of the seeing the same thing over and over and over.. please something new…

  85. gun bros does not appear in search results

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in Featured