An interesting new feature popped up on Google Play today. It allows you to pre-register for apps and games on the store. One of the games that allows you to do so is Terminator Genisys: Revolution. If you search for it in the Play Store it’ll say “Coming Soon” in search results, and tapping on the app in the search results, you’ll be prompted with a “Pre Register” button instead of download or buy. If you tap on the Pre-Register button, you’ll get a pop up that says “You’ve pre-registered for Temrinator Genisys: Revolution. You’ll be notified when the app is released. Share the news with your friends!” Then there’s a share button – which utilizes the Android share menu. And a “Got it” button. Which just takes you back to the app’s page in Google Play. The button will change to “Unregister” where you can undo your pre-registration if you really wanted too.
The only downside to the pre-registration feature, is it doesn’t tell you anything about when it’ll be released. Just that it’ll notify you when the app or game is available. It would be great to get a hard release date, although I’m sure developers can add that in the description if they wanted. This feature means that apps and games can be uploaded to Google Play ahead of release and gauge users interests by having them pre-register. It’s another step Google is taking to get more people downloading more apps, as studies have shown us that not everyone downloads many apps or games at all on their smartphones, and that’s where a lot of the money is in mobile – besides ads.
We’ll likely be seeing some more features rolling out in the near future, especially with Google I/O coming up. We’ll also likely see plenty more Google Play features at Google I/O, as this one probably didn’t make the keynote speech. Quick reminder that Google I/O is less than three weeks away, and excitement is building. We will be there covering the event, as usual, so make sure you keep your browser locked here.