Google today launched a user-friendly web version of the Android Market that makes it easier to find the perfect app. The new Market is up and running, so I checked it out.
We were all over Google's Honeycomb event today and some of the biggest news involved the new Android Market. One of the new features of the Market is a user-friendly web version that makes it easier to find the perfect app. The new Market is up and running, so I checked it out.
The site design is clean and shows a lot of apps on the screen at once. The apps are divided into a number of categories as shown in the image at right. The most exciting new feature of the Android Market is the ability to buy an app and have it pushed to any of your Android devices. I tested this and it worked as expected, with the free app I "purchased" pushed to the device I chose in the dialog box that appeared. The app was pushed to the device in just a few seconds.
I immediately repurchased the same app and chose another Android device by selecting it from the drop-down box presented. There is no indication just how many devices you can push one app to, but it accepted the second purchase without problem. One thing that may confuse consumers is that the Android Market identifies devices by the official product number instead of name. While I am aware that Samsung SPH-P100 refers to my Galaxy Tab, others may not make that connection. Since most consumers will only have the one device so this is not likely a big problem. It is great that apps can be pushed to multiple devices with one purchase price.
The new Android Market is a much better method for shopping for apps and widgets. The new web site occasionally gave me errors, but that will likely improve over time.
