These days, you can get a Gift Card for pretty much anything. I don’t know how it is in the States but over here in the UK there are gift card stands for absolutely everything, from online games for kids to Facebook, Farmville and the iTunes store. The one thing that’s been missing though, is a gift card for the Android Market that we know and love as the Play Store now. Google hasn’t always been a company that you associate with online content but thanks to the Play rebranding and expanded offerings on both Films and TV Shows, they’re fast becoming a big player in the content game. Obviously, with Google being in the smartphone and tablet game, they’re looking to take Apple on when it comes to content and an online store front. Thanks to the fact that the music and film industry are hell-bent on making as much money as they can, content parity is something that we’re not likely to see anytime soon.
Now, though, an update to the Google Play Store app has some hidden gems to reveal to us. Thanks to Android Police and their teardown of the APK we can now see that there are some added extras to the 3.8.15 version of the Play Store. Including methods to redeem a gift card as well as maintaining a balance and also a wishlist. This new version of the store app is also geared to intercept the link of “play.google/redeem” which will currently 404 on you but, make no mistake Gift Cards are certainly on their way to the Play Store.
The added Wishlist does exactly what you’d expect it to, it adds whichever desired app to a list which you can view later. Whilst neither of these additions are revolutionary they’re certainly most welcome. I, for one, would be very happy to spend £20 or on a gift card and let that last me some time instead of having to sift through all those £0.99 orders on my bank statement. When gift cards are going to start hitting stores or what stores are going to carry them is of course, unknown but, if Google have the code ready then it can’t be too long now.