If you didn’t know that the Google Play Store occasionally gets updates, you could be forgiven since the method of checking the update isn’t that prominent or even intuitive. But now it looks like Google is finally giving it an update button that will unmistakably tell users that it is what you need to tap in order to get the latest version. It seems to be a server-side update and is being tested only to selected users so we don’t know if it will eventually make it to the stable version.
9 to 5 Google shares that some users are seeing an actual “Update Play Store” button that can be seen under the Play Store version. The button will do as its name says and update the app marketplace to its latest version or whatever update Google is rolling out for it. The server-side update that brings this much-needed and more prominent button doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the Play Store apart from that.
Currently, the only way you could check if the Play Store has an update is to tap on the version number of the Play Store. It would then trigger a check for updates and then you can later on tap update so you can get the latest version. But there was no actual update button you could tap to trigger it so most users are not actually aware that it’s there or that you could even update the marketplace. Having something that actually says “update” would go a long way towards informing users about the latest version available.
This button doesn’t seem to be rolling out widely just yet. It has been spotted on a Pixel 6 Pro but it also has become available on a device running on Android 10. So this server-side update doesn’t seem to be version-specific although the possibility of having it on Android 12 is higher than lower versions of course. You can check Play Store > Settings > About and if you’re one of the lucky users, you’ll see the “Update Play Store” option there under the Play Store version.
Google likes to experiment a lot with both the user interface and the functionality of its Google Play Store and other Google apps. This is a minor thing but hopefully this becomes permanent as it is pretty useful.
