If you were asked the current exchange rate between the US dollar and the British pound; would you know it? What about the Australian dollar and the Japanese yen? Google has planned to announced that Android users will no longer have to try to do those calculations in their head because they has updated the Android Market to display prices in the user’s native currency rather than that of the developer.
Beginning today, apps will be listed as $0.99 for someone living in the United States rather than €0.72 previously listed because the Market supported only the currency of the developer’s home nation.
Google has not officially announced the change; however, apps that previously were listed in Euros, like the popular Beautiful Widgets, now appear in dollars with a tilda (~) to indicate that the price has been converted. The conversions are live and reflect the current exchange rate between the dollar and euro.
The new auto-conversion follows a slew of recent updates from Google. In addition to releasing a new version of its Car Home, Gmail, and Street View applications, Google recently added paid apps purchasing and selling to nearly 20 new countries. After months of complaints and pestering, it seems that Google is finally starting to ease some of the major complaints from users accessing its products. It’s nice to see a company that responds to their users issues instead of deflecting them.