Google introduced a new “Collections” feature powered by the Play Store last year, and it’s now better highlighting the “App library” aspect.
Collections takes content from supported apps and places it in one of seven feeds: Watch, Game, Read, Listen, Food, Shop, and Social.
There’s also an “App library” that categorizes your apps into folders like: Business, Communication, Creativity, Food, Games, Health & fitness, Listen, News, Productivity, Read, Reference, Smart home, Social, Travel & local, Utilities, Watch, and Other. At the top, you get high-level groupings for Top used and Recently added.
Instead of appearing as the last item in the Collections carousel, we’re now seeing App library as the first with version 45.4 of Google Play. In the past, users might not have scrolled all the way to the end, or missed the 3×3 grid icon on the widget.
I haven’t really taken to Collections, but I do find the App library to be rather handy, especially “Recently added” to find newly installed apps.
(The Collection I do use semi-regularly is “Listen” for YouTube Music and Pocket Casts. As a reminder, you can tap the profile icon > Collections settings to reorder and hide carousel items.)
My usage of Collections has gone up recently due to the new Play Store app shortcut, which appears to have finally fixed the missing 2×2 grid icon issue. Otherwise, my Collections widget is pretty buried on a later homescreen.
More on Google Play:
- Play Store removes P2P ‘Share apps’ functionality
- Google making Android widgets push with new Play Store filter
- Play Protect cannot be disabled during phone and video calls
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