Google announces new ways to discover apps on Android Market, more tools for developers

Android Market may have a lot going for it, but most would surely agree that it could use some improvement when it comes to discovering apps that you aren’t specifically looking for. Thankfully, it seems Google has indeed been aware of those concerns, and it’s now announced five new features that should go so some way towards improving things. Those include some newly revamped top app charts that promise to be “fresher” and country specific, a brand new Editors’ Choice section that highlights apps chosen by Google, a new Top Developers feature that places a special icon next to the name of developers that make the grade (currently more than 150), improved related apps on individual app pages and, last but not least, a new trending apps section that shows the apps growing fastest in terms of daily installs. What’s more, while all of those features are currently exclusive to the web-based version, Google says they’re also “coming soon” to the Android Market on both phones and tablets. The company has also announced that it will be adding support for larger apps — up to 4GB — in June, and it will soon be giving developers the ability to exclude specific devices to avoid compatibility problems, or make multiple versions an app available under a single Market listing, complete with aggregated ratings and stats. All that, and it’s bringing paid app support to an additional 99 countries. Google announces new ways to discover apps on Android Market, more tools for developers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 15:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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