The Google Street View Android app surpassed one billion downloads on the Google Play Store, as evidenced by the mobile tool’s official listing. It’s unclear how many of those installs can be attributed to the fact that the app is part of Google’s Android software suite that the company mandates is pre-installed on all smartphones and tablets running most iterations of its open source operating system, but regardless, surpassing one billion downloads is a noteworthy achievement that not many mobile apps manage to reach. Some industry watchers claim that the Google Street View app took just under four years to go from 500 million downloads to one billion installs, and seeing how the service recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, it seems that the platform continues to gain traction at a somewhat steady pace.
While the popularity of Google Street View still doesn’t come close to the adoption rates of most flagship offerings of the Alphabet-owned company like Gmail and Search, its growth may pick up in the coming years due to the increasing popularity of 360-degree cameras and virtual reality (VR) experiences, with some related technologies being compatible with Google’s platform. Google Street View also didn’t start as a standalone app, with the firm only spinning if off from Google Maps several years back, suggesting that the tool may yet to see more widespread adoption.
Like many other creations developed by the Mountain View, California-based tech giant, Google Street View is still in the growth phase and the company has yet to show any indication that it’s looking to seriously monetize the service. This product strategy popularized a broad range of Google’s older offerings and wouldn’t have been possible without the firm’s massive advertising revenue, though Google is still a publicly traded company that answers to its stockholders and may find itself under pressure to try making money from Street View in the future. That apparently still isn’t happening for the time being, making Street View one of the most uniquely accessible apps available for download from the Google Play Store. An update on the service and its upcoming additions will likely follow in the coming months.