Before joining Android Police, Manuel studied Media and Culture studies in Düsseldorf, finishing his university 'career' with a master's degree. He focuses on Android, Chrome, and other software Google products - the core of Android Police’s coverage. Manuel Vonau joined Android Police as a freelancer in 2019 and has worked his way up to become the publication's Google Editor. If, for some reason, you're into the design and you don't have it, you can try your luck sideloading the latest version of the Play Store over at APK Mirror. The feature now seems to be rolling out widely as part of a server-side flag/update following last week's expansion, with widespread reports of it appearing on devices in the last day or two. With Google and many third-party developers increasingly moving to server-side updates that bring interface and behavior changes to apps without requiring a new download, it could be that easy access to app updates might not be as much of a priority, though it's still an annoying change. Google previously removed notifications informing about finished automatic app updates, forcing those who want to stay up to date with their changelogs to check back the Play Store regularly or to deactivate auto-updates - giving them notifications about pending updates.

The move sure seems like it's meant to further disincentive people from checking the Play Store for updates.

This latest push is noticeably different, but it's expanding much more widely. A version of this redesign also popped up back in 2020, but it disappeared for most people after a while.

Play store uptodown