Alongside the Play Books update which started rolling out earlier this afternoon, Google has just started updating their other reading focused application, Play Newsstand. With Play Books Google introduced a couple of new features as well as some visual changes throughout the application, and while Play Newsstand isn’t changing very much visually, it is gaining some pretty nifty new features, or at least one nifty new feature that should be appreciated by anyone who uses this app for the main source of news and reading their favorite blogs and magazines, and if you aren’t one to wait you can download and install the apk for the latest Play Newsstand right here, which should bring you forward to version 3.4.
When it comes to new functions, Google has added a homescreen shortcut option allowing you to place quick access to the stories and news sites you love to read most on your phone or tablet’s homescreen. Google has been adding shortcuts to other apps as well, like Inbox which recently saw shortcuts added in one of its latest updates. Adding shortcuts for Play Newsstand isn’t handled quite the same way as other app shortcuts, and instead has users adding topics or particular sites to their homescreen from within the app. Getting to this is fairly simple and can be done from the overflow menu (three dot button) once inside a particular news blog you follow.
Alongside the “add to homescreen” option within the app, Google has made some various bug fixes and improvements, something which is generally present in any app update whether from Google or not. Overall, the bug fixes should help to improve the performance of the application so if Play Newsstand is your main app for reading news, this should be a welcomed update for you. In addition to the bug fixes and the shortcuts, Google also added in some improvements to the accessibility features of the app too which should help those who use them. There isn’t a whole lot else to the Play Newsstand update this time around, but the shortcuts feature should be plenty to tide you over until some other new features come along.
