Last week, many of us saw some server-side changes with Google Play Newsstand which brought along some UI tweaks to individual article pages. We also mentioned that there was an update on the way, but it wasn’t available yet. Well it is now, and it’s here as version 3.5. It’s not a huge update, but does bring in some more visual tweaks that everyone will appreciate.
One of the bigger changes that was made with Newsstand is in the Highlights section, which is the first section or the default section in Newsstand. Prior to this update, the “Top News” was not at the top, but it is now. Another change is that the banner with a background for Top News is gone and replaced with text stating that it is Top News and “Powered by Google News”. Which means articles that are popular on Google News will be showing up there, which is what has been happening all along. Another change with the Top News is that you can now see an excerpt of the article there, as before you only saw the title along with the publication that wrote it. Also, Featured Sources are now labeled, which they weren’t before. The icons for those sources also have the name of the source below, now.
That’s basically it for changes to Google Play Newsstand in this update. It’s available now on the Google Play Store, and as usual it is rolling out in a staged roll out. However we do have the APK, which you can grab and sideload on your device. If you’ve never sideloaded an app before, it’s quite simple. Just go into Settings > Security then tap on “Unknown Sources” and enable it. Now download the linked file above and once it’s done open it. It’ll then walk you through installing it and updating the app if you already have it installed.
Google Play Newsstand is still a pretty popular app for catching up on the news, as well as reading all of your favorite magazines, for those that still subscribe to Magazines. Don’t forget to subscribe to Android Headlines on Google Play Newsstand as well.
