While the Google Play Store has over a million apps for Android users to download and use on their devices, many of Google’s own apps, unsurprisingly, happen to be the most downloaded ones. A number of Google apps like Gmail, Hangouts, Google Search, Chrome, YouTube, Play Music and a few others had already long achieved the billion milestone, having been downloaded and installed over a billion times since going live on the Play Store. Google Play Newsstand is yet another app from Google that managed to achieve the landmark just last month. Now, yet another Google app called Google Play Movies & TV, has also joined its illustrious stable mates from the house of Google, and has surpassed the billion mark, according to the listing on the Play Store. The app, which allows users to watch movies and television shows on Android devices as well as via Chromecast, was last updated earlier this week on October 5th with official support for Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
Taking a look at the list of the most downloaded apps on the Play Store, it is pretty evident that not many third-party apps have had the same success that Google’s own in-house apps have had over the years. While one wouldn’t expect many email or navigation apps to come close to the success of Gmail or Google Maps, it is a bit surprising to see that pretty much the only third-party apps to get to the billion mark are basically social networking and messaging apps like Facebook, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp etc. As for Play Movies and TV, the application comes pre-installed on many Android devices, so the high user-base may not be entirely unexpected, but either way, it would still be a day to celebrate for the developers at Google who are in charge of creating and maintaining the app.
Talking about the app In question, Google Play Movies and TV allows Android device users to watch in online and offline modes, movies and TV shows purchased or rented through the Play Store. While users all around the world are free to download and install the app on their phones and tablets, some of the functionalities of the software are restricted by geo-location, for reasons of local legislation in some cases, and digital distribution rights in others. For example, the television shows are available only in the US, Canada, the UK, Japan and Australia, and there’s no word from Google if and when that might change.