The Google Play Store has received a very nice update to version 4.8.19 which brings along several new features, the most exciting of which is undoubtedly PayPal support for 12 countries including the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Finland, Spain and Ireland. There's also some new UI features to make note of. You can hit the link to the APK below.
So what's new? PayPal support will appear as a payment option when you next purchase a game or movie. Simply log in and start spending. This is such a long overdue option it seems amazing that it has only just appeared in the Play Store. However, you cannot use PayPal for device purchases or Google Wallet purchases outside the Play Store.
There's also some changes to the permissions, which are now more streamlined and straightforward. If you're pretty familiar with the various permissions of apps in the Play Store (and you really should be) then you probably don't need the short summary underneath the permission title. This has now been removed so all you get is a clean list of permissions, which can be expanded to get a full description. You also get nice little icons for some visual excitement.
The permissions list is now cleaner and Google has offered a full description of the changes.
So what else? Well, there's now some snazzier review options, so when you rate an app you'll see a colorful banner under your slightly larger profile picture rather than the previous left-aligned text version. You'll also get nice color-coded stars depending on the Play Store category you are in: blue for books, green for apps and so on. The rating descriptions have also changed, so a 4-star ''Above average'' is now ''Liked it'' and ''Excellent'' is now ''Loved it''.
A new section has been added at the bottom of an app section giving further information which is also quite useful, proving details on the last update version and date, content rating, installed size of the app and permission details. Some of this was already included in an app description but now its more prominent.
The last detail comes in visuals, in transparency of the header bars so that they fade out and the text floats on top of the header image in the movies, music and books sections of the Play Store. Finally the buttons are now larger, if that's particularly exciting for you and the search icon will now always appear to the far right, making everything a little cleaner and more consistent.
Download the Play Store APK v4.8.19 from Android Police.
Have you grabbed the new Play Store APK yet? What would you like to see in the next update?