Android Market Update

 A few days ago there was an announcement about update  to the Android Market client that will be launched over the next two weeks to all devices with Android 1.6 or higher.

According to Android Developers’ Blog this new Market client provides important features that improve merchandising of applications, streamline the browse-to-purchase experience, and make it easier for developers to distribute their applications.

The new Android Market gives the opportunity for quick flip through a new carousel to view promoted  apps and straight go to the download page for the application they want. There were introduced two new categories for Widgets and Live Wallpapers. “Related” tab was added to app details page.

We heard a lot about Content rating. Besides this users can now access all the information about an app on a single page without any need to navigate across different tabs, and the refund window on the market was reduced to 15 minutes.

So, there are some changes in this new Android Market release that may affect your applications:

• The details page for every app will now utilize and display the app’s “Promotional Graphic” assets at the top. If you haven’t done so already, we recommend uploading “Promotional Graphic” assets for your apps as soon as possible.
• Users will be able to filter applications by content rating. If you haven’t added a content rating for your published apps, you should do so immediately at the Publisher site by December 15 -- applications or games without a rating will be treated as “Mature”.
• We will be reducing the purchase refund window to 15 minutes.
• We will be increasing the maximum size for .apk files to 50MB, from the current 25MB.
• Market will support filtering based on screen sizes and densities, as well as on GL texture compression formats. Filtering is based on <compatible-screens> and <uses-gl-texture> elements in an app’s manifest.

Reference: Android Developers’ Blog