Preview of Android Market Changes for 1.6 [VIDEO]

Posted Sep 3 2009 by Scott Webster in  with 19 Comments



android_donut_logoWanna see what the Android Market will look like for Android 1.6?  Check out the video below.  Eric Chu of the Android Developers Blog just dropped a quick update on us to say that a few improvements are on there way.  Not only does it get a visual refresh with lots of color, but developers have the ability to show up to 2 screenshots.

We have also added four new sub-categories for applications: sports, health, themes, and comics. Developers can now choose these sub-categories for both new and existing applications via the publisher website.  – Eric Chu

What do you guys think?  Excited?  What if this is all we get out of Donut? Is that cool with you?

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About the Author

Scott WebsterScott founded AndroidGuys on November 5, 2007 and has been hooked ever since. His other mobile efforts can be found on AndroidAtlas (CNET) where he covers Google's mobile platform. When not obsessing over phones and tablets, Scott can be found listening to house music, watching the Green Bay Packers, or catching the latest movie.View all posts by Scott Webster →

  • http://twitter.com/DtheArtist @DtheArtist

    NICEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, can't wait

  • http://www.iversemedia.com/ Joakim Erdfelt

    Dang, I wish that was "Books" and not just "Comics"

  • Georges

    While I like the new look, this doesn't go in the direction I wish.
    What I most frequently want to do is browse for stuff, with no specific type/theme in mind. I just want to discover "cool" stuff, things I never heard about, not have more restrictive categories. I never use them, as I'd have to browse too many categories, which is a pain.
    What I need are filters. Here are the things I want to be able to NOT see:

    - apps only provided in languages I don't know. This is becoming more and more of a problem on Market, with more and more apps in Chinese/Asian languages, or in European languages I don't know. I want to be able to see only apps in English/French/German. Also think about people who can't read English: it has to be trivial for them to never see English only apps… Brutal, but that's the experience I'd expect. There are tons of ebooks too.

    - apps with irrelevant local contents. I don't want to see all these maps of places that are irrelevant to my current location. I don't want the metro map of London to ever appear, or at least, I should be able to filter out everything further than 100 miles away from my current location. Conversely, the day I take the plane and land in NY, I want the NY metro maps to appear right away with all NY specific content apps. Other example: TV guides. Do I care about German/Swedish/UK TV guides? These all exist on Android market in 2 versions (lite & full)… As I live in the US, I couldn't care less. And vice-versa. Local content is only ever relevant to a minority of people, as only a minority of users live in or around that location/country.

    - apps from "bad" authors. There are way too many publishers that make 10s or 100s of apps that are all crappy, in the same spirit. Like the "Celebrity XXX sound/pics pack" apps, and the like, that change ringtones and/or wallpapers and the like according to a theme. They build 10s of these. Other example: I heard Apple banned an Indian app developer who authored over 800 apps, all of dubious interest. Rather than have this guy be banned (which is always unpopular), we could better let users decide for themselves and maybe let the developers know how often they've been filtered out permanently.

    - low ratings: I often don't even bother with an app with less than 3 stars.

    Please improve market: this is where the value of the platform is built, yet, the app itself is not too good… :-(

  • TareX

    All I can see is the choppiness of the new market has he slowly scrolled….

  • Anartic

    From the video, I looked at one of the comments posted and it said August 6, so that was close to a month ago, I can't wait to see what else they might have added to the updates since then :D

  • http://twitter.com/SilentMobius @SilentMobius

    Well screenshots are nice, but can we hide specific developers yet? or mark a specific reviewer as blacklisted so their scores don't factor into the scores we see? Those are the things I need to make the market more useful to me. Also, whats with the colour scheme? Android has a white on black colour scheme, why deviate for just this app? Couldn't Google just issue a closed source payment intent and open up the app searching api for other developers to write a useful interface, after all it's only the payment and downloading part thats sensitive no?

  • CompactDstrxion

    "What if this is all we get out of Donut?"

    Then anyone who's bothered should root their phone and install one of the myriad of better ROMs out there.

    • David

      Seriously…I just rooted my phone a few days ago with the newest stable Cyanogen ROM. Faster, smoother, and the ability to install apps to the SD card is great! Here's a link to the guide I used – http://preview.tinyurl.com/oazrpr.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/apascua61 apascua61

    I hope this isnt all we get from donut

  • ressu

    I just wish they would add changelogs to the market app, it's sometimes hard to find out what changed and is it worth to download the new version

    other than that, screenshots are the thing i've missed when compared to apple appstore

  • http://s3.ihunda.com Giorgio Regni

    Looks better but that wasn't really hard :)
    @ressu, you're right, I also hope they will add change logs as putting them in the description is not practical at all.

  • Chris

    Market is an app, donut is an OS release. You can't compare the two.

    • Rob

      yep. they're just tryin to keep us happy is all. i def like it though.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/Thomas520 Thomas520

    It's about time! One thing I hated was checking out an app and not being able to see what it really is without downloading it.

  • Georges

    While I like the new look, this doesn't go in the direction I wish.
    What I most frequently want to do is browse for apps, with no specific type/theme in mind. I just want to discover "cool" stuff, things I never heard about, not have more restrictive categories. I never use them, as I'd have time to browse too many categories, which is a pain.
    What I need are filters. Here are the things I want to be able to NOT see:

    - apps only provided in languages I don't know. This is becoming more and more of a problem on Market, with more and more apps in Chinese/Asian languages, or in European languages I don't know. I want to be able to see only apps in English/French/German. Also think about people who can't read English: it has to be trivial for them to never see English only apps… Brutal, but that's the experience I'd expect. There are tons of ebooks too.

    - apps with irrelevant local contents. I don't want to see all these maps of places that are irrelevant to my current location. I don't want the metro map of London to ever appear, or at least, I should be able to filter out everything further than 100 miles away from my current location. Conversely, the day I take the plane and land in NY, I want the NY metro maps to appear right away with all NY specific content apps. Other example: TV guides. Do I care about German/Swedish/UK TV guides? These all exist on Android market in 2 versions (lite & full)… As I live in the US, I couldn't care less. And vice-versa. Local content is only ever relevant to a minority of people, as only a minority of users live in or around that location/country.

    - apps from "bad" authors. There are way too many publishers that make 10s or 100s of apps that are all crappy, in the same spirit. Like the "Celebrity XXX sound/pics pack" apps, and the like, that change ringtones and/or wallpapers and the like according to a theme. They build 10s of these. Other example: I heard Apple banned an Indian app developer who authored over 800 apps, all of dubious interest. Rather than have this guy be banned (which is always unpopular), we could better let users decide for themselves and maybe let the developers know how often they've been filtered out permanently.

    - low ratings: I often don't even bother with an app with less than 3 stars.

    Please improve market: this is where the value of the platform is built, yet, the app itself is not too good… :-(

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