Android Market update brings serious changes, reduces refund window to 15 minutes
The Android Developers Blog just posted an announcement that the Market has undergone a few, fairly remarkable, changes that will both please and probably tick off most of us.
With a focus on improving discoverability and merchandising, we’ve introduced a new carousel on the home and category screens. Users can quickly flip through the carousel to view promoted applications and immediately go to the download page for the application they want. Developers have been very active in creating great Widgets and Live Wallpapers. To make it easier for users to find their favorites, we’re introducing two new categories for Widgets and Live Wallpapers. Applications that include Widgets and Wallpapers will be automatically added to those new categories. We’ll also be adding more categories for popular applications and games in the weeks ahead. In addition, the app details page now includes Related content, which makes it easier for users to quickly find apps of similar interest.
A new .apk file size limit has just been implemented, the new cap is 50MB this is to “better support richer games.” Also on tap is support for “device targeting” to best fit end users and their respective displays and densities. Which is a must have feature now that Android has a large window for variable screen sizes.
They also decided to reduce the refund window to a measly 15 minutes. Their justification for this was “most users who request a refund do so within minutes of purchase”. Yikes! No more buying now and waiting until later to try out your purchase.
All Phandroids running Android 1.6 or higher should see the update for the client within the next two weeks.
Update:
For those of you who want the new Market now, Android Police is hosting the .apk via multiupload. We suggest reading the post before diving in as there is some warnings about custom ROMs and the lack of testing, specifically those of you running CM.
This is one of those “we’re only sharing the information, not suggesting you go and install it without regard to the risks”.