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People woke up on Tuesday morning to find an additional ‘Play' button on their Google toolbar, the most prized real estate space on the Internet.
‘Play' is Google's latest offering, and is an integration of an Android marketplace and cloud services. The Play store allows users to purchase books or movies, for example, on their Android devices and view it on their desktops through the cloud.
4.5 lakh apps
Google has positioned Play as ‘all your entertainment in one place.' The store has 4.5 lakh applications, many movies, books, music and maps. In India, only the Android application download option is available as of now.
These applications are sorted on various levels such as category, popularity, monetary aspect, editor's choice, and staff picks. Google's decision to include the link to the market place on their toolbar has generated a buzz among users.
As the Android space has been known for its free content, there are concerns on whether people will actually pay to download some of the paid applications.
“First you need to sync your phone with your gmail account and then download applications. I have short-listed some good games to download on my phone,” said Aashima Singh, a student. “It is great that Temple Run, my favourite game is available free for Android phones,” she said. The paid applications on ‘Play' are priced upwards of Rs 50.
Netizens happy
With Temple Run, a game restricted to the iPad, being now available for the Android market place, netizens have expressed their happiness on social media. Says Rachid on Twitter, “Temple Run meet android, android meet Temple Run. Oh yeah, it's free on the Google Play store too!”
The Play store is also being compared with Apple's Appstore. “Wow! Google just launched Google Play! Trying to give iTunes and Apple a run for their money,” said Perez Hilton on Twitter. Apple's Appstore also has nearly 5 lakh applications which can be downloaded onto an iPad, iPhone or Macintosh.
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