Google has been developing some new features for the Play Store. Recently, a new feature that will highlight apps meant for tablets and cars was under development, which could be a part of Google's Car-ready mobile apps program that was announced back at the Google I/O 2024 event.
Now, the latest APK Teardown of the Play Store app v42.9.16-3 reveals several strings related to a download manager feature. While the strings don't reveal much about the functionality of the download manager, they suggest that it organizes the apps. It is often challenging to recall the apps that you have recently installed, but the download manager could probably address the issue.
Here are the strings about the Play Store download manager:
AppOpenDownloadManager__enable_play_download_manager
AppOpenDownloadManager__enable_recent_downloads_sorted_by_install_time
AppOpenDownloadManager__enable_recent_downloads_sorted_by_schedule_time
Folks at Android Authority were able to enable the feature and give us a look at how the Play Store download manager would look if Google ever made the feature live for all users. The download manager within the Google Play Store shows a list of apps that are currently downloading and all the recently installed apps that you haven't opened.
When you open any app from the download manager, the list disappears. Additionally, Google will add an icon at the top right, before the 3-dot menu icon, showing a badge. This badge also shows the number of apps and games that you have recently downloaded.
However, one of the important things for a download manager that it should let you perform, e.g., the ability to pause and resume downloads, is missing from this iteration. Since apps' and games' sizes are increasing, it would have been a nifty feature, especially if they are on a limited mobile data plan that refreshes daily.
Notably, the feature isn't live at the moment on the Play Store, and Google hasn't shared a word about the feature. So, it may or may not be released in the future.
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